•<^J&  _ 


William 

Lawrence 


.  'V 


Cibrar^  of  Che  "theological  Aeminarip 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 

FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
ROBERT  ELLIOTT  SPEER 

BX  5995  . L397  A2  1923  | 

Lawrence,  William,  1850- 

i.  y  *±  ±  . 

Fifty  years 


/ 


■'Y/ 


FIFTY  YEARS 


9 


FIFTY  YEARS 


t/  BY 

WILLIAM  LAWRENCE,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Bishop  of  Massachusetts 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
jc  I&tbergibe  Cambrtbse 

!923 


COPYRIGHT,  1923,  BY  WILLIAM  LAWRENCE 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


&[ )e  ftibersitJe  JJress 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED  IN  THE  U.S.A. 


TO  THE  YOUNG  MEN 
IN  COLLEGE,  DIVINITY  SCHOOL 
AND  THE  MINISTRY 
AND  TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  THOSE 
THAT  HAVE  GONE  INTO  A  FAR  COUNTRY 
WHO  HAVE  BEEN  MY 
STUDENTS,  FRIENDS,  AND  SUPPORTERS 
I  DEDICATE  THIS  LITTLE  BOOK 


FIFTY  YEARS 


FIFTY  YEARS 

I 


FRIENDS  have  told  me  that  I  have 
been  Bishop  of  Massachusetts  thirty 
years.  I  can  hardly  believe  it.  Assuming 
the  fact,  however,  my  memory  runs  back 
through  thirty  to  fifty  years.  Hence,  in 
writing  an  address  which  my  loyal  Dio¬ 
cese  asked  me  to  give  in  the  Cathedral 
on  the  Anniversary  Day,  October  5th,  I 
have  included  the  half-century  from  1873 
to  1923,  in  order  to  sketch  the  movement 
of  my  thought  and  faith  from  early  man¬ 
hood  on;  for  my  experience  is  typical  of 
thousands  of  others ;  and  the  young  men  and 
women  of  to-day  may  catch  some  thoughts, 
perhaps  some  inspiration,  from  it. 

I  was  born  in  Boston  over  seventy- 
three  years  ago:  and  was  baptized  in  St. 
Paul’s  Church,  which  is  now  the  Cathe- 


dral,  where  my  father  and  mother  were 
confirmed  and  were  communicants.  I 
have  therefore  been  a  member  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the 
United  States  over  one  half  its  history  and 
have  known  men  and  women  whose  lives 
ran  close  to  the  Revolution. 

My  father  was  a  successful  merchant 
and  manufacturer,  but  was  at  heart  and  in 
deed  a  farmer.  He  financed  the  emigrants 
to  make  Kansas  a  free  State  —  hence 
“Lawrence,”  Kansas.  He  disapproved  of 
John  Brown,  but  helped  him;  ran  for 
Governor  when  he  was  sure  of  defeat; 
was  Treasurer  of  Harvard  College  and 
drilled  the  students  at  the  opening  of  the 
Civil  War;  with  Henry  Lee  he  recruited  the 
Second  Cavalry;  headed  subscription  lists, 
raised  money  for  Harvard  Memorial  Hall 
and  all  sorts  of  enterprises;  founded  two 
colleges  in  the  West;  built  churches  and 
worshipped  in  them.  Our  home  was  in 


Brookline,  then  a  rural  village.  He  rode 
horseback,  mostly  on  half-broken  brutes, 
for  over  fifty  years;  skated  until  he  was 
nearly  seventy;  and  made  friends  with 
every  one  in  town,  especially  the  boys  and 
girls.  He  never  sent  his  children  to  church, 
but  always  went  with  them,  and  we  knew 
that  his  religion  was  the  real  thing. 

He  always  said,  however,  that,  although 
his  boys  might  inherit  certain  qualities, 
they  would  not  learn  much  by  looking  on 
or  listening  to  advice.  Each  one  of  us 
must  get  his  own  experience.  In  this  I 
think  he  was  wrong.  I  am  sure  that  we 
gained  more  by  looking  on  and  listening 
than  he  thought. 

My  mother  was  a  woman  of  rare  beauty 
and  dignity,  reserved,  especially  in  matters 
of  personal  religion.  As  to  her  administra¬ 
tive  ability  my  father  used  to  say  that  Gen¬ 
eral  Grant ,  if  he  knew  her,  would  put  her 
at  the  head  of  the  commissary  department. 


My  boyhood  was  passed  in  a  large  and 
happy  family  which,  through  the  beauti¬ 
ful  character  of  my  parents,  daily  family 
prayer,  and  Sunday  worship,  was  satu¬ 
rated  with  Christian  piety.  Attending  the 
public  schools,  the  Town  Meetings  and 
the  rallies  in  the  Civil  War,  I  was  filled 
with  the  spirit  of  American  Democracy.  I 
went  through  Harvard  University,  whose 
mottoes  are  “The  Truth”  and  “For 
Christ  and  His  Church.”  Knowing  per¬ 
sonally  through  my  father’s  friends  some 
of  the  leaders  of  New  England’s  thought, 
literature,  and  religion,  I  was  brought  up 
to  face  changes  of  thought  and  faith  with 
an  open  mind  and  with  courage. 

A  few  facts  may  suggest  to  you  how  far 
away  those  days  were.  The  universe  as 
we  know  it  to-day  was  beyond  man’s 
imagination.  To  us  boys  our  world  was 
the  centre  of  the  universe,  and  the  sun  a 
blazing  ball  of  unknown  size.  Stellar 


photography,  spectrum  analysis,  and 
those  other  instrumentalities  which  have 
shown  us  the  speed  of  light,  the  distance 
of  planets  and  stars  and  the  substance  of 
them,  were  not  to  be  discovered  for  a 
generation  and  more. 

As  for  this  earth,  the  greater  part  of 
Asia,  including  China  and  Japan,  Africa, 
Australia,  the  Balkans  and  the  Near  East, 
and  Russia,  were  practically  unopened. 
Ocean  travel  was  almost  altogether  by 
sail.  The  population  of  the  United  States 
stopped  practically  at  the  Ohio  and  Mis¬ 
sissippi  Rivers,  except  for  a  few  adventur¬ 
ous  spirits  who  crossed  the  plains  and 
Rockies  or  rounded  Cape  Horn. 

The  shrinkage  of  the  world  by  rapid 
transit  and  interchange  of  thought  and 
people,  the  crowding  of  races  upon  each 
other,  with  the  consequent  competition 
and  increase  of  national  and  racial  con¬ 
sciousness,  were  still  to  come. 


Although  vaccination  against  smallpox, 
and  anaesthetics,  were  in  limited  use,  mod¬ 
ern  medicine  and  surgery  did  not  exist. 
Typhoid  fever,  consumption,  diphtheria, 
scarlet  fever,  and  other  diseases  ran  their 
course.  Preventive  hygiene  was  unknown. 
Every  autumn  an  appreciable  percentage 
of  the  people  had  typhoid  fever:  many 
died.  I  had  it,  as  did  two  of  my  sisters, 
and  lived.  It  seems  only  a  few  years  since 
I  used  to  be  called  to  homes  in  my  parish 
in  Lawrence  where  children  were  dying  of 
diphtheria  or  typhoid  fever  or  both;  the 
mothers  praying,  the  doctors  almost  help¬ 
less.  In  the  seventies  Pasteur  and  Lister 
announced  the  discoveries  which  have 
been  the  means  of  saving  millions  on 
millions  of  lives.  The  application  of  elec¬ 
tricity  was  practically  unknown.  Modern 
science  and  the  theory  of  evolution,  which 
have  revolutionized  our  interpretations  of 
nature  and  religious  faith,  were  not.  And 


modern  psychology,  with  its  suggestions 
of  unknown  mental  and  spiritual  forces, 
was  undreamed  of. 

And  yet  New  England  had  a  literature, 
a  prestige,  a  character,  culture,  and  enter¬ 
prise  which  its  people  of  to-day  may  well 
envy. 

The  date,  however,  upon  which  I  want 
to  set  your  thoughts  is  that  of  1873:  fifty 
years  ago,  when,  after  graduating  from 
college,  I  was  studying  for  the  ministry; 
indeed,  my  conscious  and  intelligent  in¬ 
terest  in  Christian  thought  and  move¬ 
ments,  practically,  too,  my  ministry,  is 
about  a  half-century  long.  It  is  upon  the 
movements  in  this  period,  especially  as 
they  bear  upon  the  Christian  Faith,  that 
I  shall  dwell. 

As  I  started  from  my  home  for  the  The¬ 
ological  Seminary,  timid,  humble,  driven 
by  a  sense  of  duty  and  loyalty  to  Christ, 
President  Hopkins,  of  Williams  College, 


[  10  ] 

the  great  educator  and  Christian  philoso¬ 
pher  of  his  day,  who  was  a  guest  of  my 
father,  said  good-bye  to  me,  saying,  “You 
think  that  you  have  settled  some  ques¬ 
tions;  but  you  will  have  to  begin  all  over 
again.’’  What  he  meant  I  could  not  then 
understand;  but  a  few  weeks  revealed 
his  meaning,  and  now,  half  a  century 
later,  some  of  the  questions  are  still  un¬ 
settled. 

Through  boyhood  and  to  some  degree 
in  college  I  had  accepted  the  Christian 
Faith  as  it  had  been  taught  me.  While  the 
Jesus  of  the  Gospels  was  a  vivid  story,  the 
chief  emphasis  was  upon  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment,  and  of  course  both  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  being  inspired,  were  true  to 
the  word  and  letter.  The  world  was  cre¬ 
ated  in  six  days  in  the  year  4004  b.c.,  for 
Genesis  and  the  date  on  the  margin  of  the 
family  Bible  said  so.  Adam  and  Eve,  the 
serpent,  Noah  and  the  flood  destroying 


[  11  ] 

everybody  and  everything  on  the  earth 
but  the  family  and  the  animals  entering 
the  Ark  two  by  two,  Jonah  and  the  whale, 
Joshua  and  the  sun,  Daniel  and  the  lions’ 
den,  the  three  young  men  in  the  fiery 
furnace,  were  facts  as  real  as  anything 
that  happened  yesterday.  God  from  out 
of  heaven  sent  His  word  or  put  out  His 
hand  and  stopped  the  sun  or  the  plagues, 
did  anything  that  He  wanted  to;  and  by 
His  miracles  showed  that  He  was  God. 
These  were  the  leading  ideas  in  a  boy’s 
religion;  whoever  denied  or  questioned 
any  of  them  was  a  sceptic  or  an  atheist 
and  liable  to  be  damned.  A  heaven  of 
bliss  and  a  hell  of  eternal  fire  were  as  vivid 
as  the  blue,  serene  sky  over  my  head  or  a 
big  bonfire  by  night. 

To  be  sure,  our  mother  and  father  told 
us  of  a  loving  heavenly  Father  and  of  the 
boy  Jesus  and  the  Saviour  on  the  Cross; 
but  these  seemed  to  have  no  close  connec- 


[  12  ] 


tion  with  those  other  things  which  were 
more  closely  associated  with  preaching 
and  the  Sunday  School.  My  home  had  a 
happy  religious  life,  but  oh!  the  terrors 
that  thousands  of  boys  and  girls  suffered. 
The  worst,  however,  was  not  in  the  phys¬ 
ical  fears  and  horrible  dreads,  but  in  the 
lack  of  intellectual  and  moral  integrity 
required  to  meet  the  situation.  The 
questions  of  young  people  are  always 
searching.  In  those  days  the  brains  of 
our  elders,  our  parents,  Sunday  School 
teachers,  and  ministers  were  forced  to 
great  agility  in  meeting  the  problems  of 
inconsistency  of  statement  in  the  Bible, 
impossible  situations,  evident  errors  of 
fact,  and  the  revelations  of  science.  We 
were  led  to  assume  that  there  were  two 
worlds,  the  one  of  our  everyday,  matter- 
of-fact  life,  where  answers  to  questions 
were  straight,  and  the  other  of  religions, 
where  faith  seemed  to  play  havoc  with 


[  13  ] 

common  honesty.  We  felt,  but  never 
said,  that  the  whole  situation  was  unreal 
and  false;  it  offended  our  moral  sense. 

When  a  Junior  at  Harvard  I  went  one 
day  to  a  lecture  by  Professor  Agassiz  on 
the  glacial  theory  which  was  arousing 
keen  popular  interest.  Doubts  had  en¬ 
tered  my  mind  as  to  the  accuracy  of  the 
account  of  the  creation  of  the  world  in  six 
days.  Defenders  of  the  Faith  had  already 
begun  to  concede  that  six  days  were  six 
aeons;  that  possibly  the  serpent  himself 
did  not  talk  with  Eve  —  most  unsatis¬ 
factory  concessions,  they  seemed  to  me. 
Nevertheless,  the  date  4004  still  stood  in 
the  margin  of  the  Bible,  and  six  days  were 
six  days.  Think,  then,  of  the  shock  given 
when  Agassiz,  of  charming  personality, 
and  in  broken  English,  said,  “Gentlemen, 
the  world  is  older  than  we  have  been 
taught  to  think.  Its  age  is  as  if  one  were 
gently  to  rub  a  silk  handkerchief  across 


[  14  ] 

Plymouth  Rock  once  a  year  until  it  were 
reduced  to  a  pebble. ” 

I  left  that  lecture  thinking  hard  as 
to  how  the  discoveries  of  science  might 
destroy  or  perhaps  glorify  our  faith  in  God 
and  the  revelation  of  Him  in  the  Scrip¬ 
tures,  and  have  been  thinking  ever  since. 

I  had  suspected  and  silently  decided 
that  the  Bible  was  wrong  somehow.  But 
if  one  yielded  to  science  in  the  Biblical 
account  of  creation,  which  of  course  was 
an  historic  fact,  where  was  one  going  to 
stop? 

You  who  are  under  fifty  years  of  age 
have  no  conception  of  the  searchings  of 
heart,  the  sorrows  over  a  lost  faith,  the 
anxiety  of  parents  over  children,  the 
tragic  experiences  of  those  days.  Tenny¬ 
son’s  “In  Memoriam”  expresses  it  to  a 
degree,  but  the  tragedy  was  all  about 
us,  father  against  son,  brother  against 
brother. 


[  15  ] 

When,  therefore,  I  began  seriously  to 
study  for  the  ministry,  I  discovered  what 
President  Hopkins  meant.  Problems, 
questions,  doubts,  ever-revealing  truth 
wrestled  with  each  other  in  mortal  com¬ 
bat.  The  publication  of  Darwin’s  “Origin 
of  Species,”  which  marks  the  new  era,  was 
in  1859,  fourteen  years  before  my  date 
of  1873.  Its  significance  was  just  seeping 
through  the  minds  of  scientists,  philoso¬ 
phers,  and  ecclesiastical  leaders  to  the 
people.  The  subject  of  a  thesis  given  me 
by  my  professor  in  Theology  was,  “Can  a 
man  believe  in  Darwinism  and  remain  a 
Christian?”  The  professor  said  he  could 
not.  I  knew  almost  nothing  on  the  sub¬ 
ject,  though  I  had,  of  course,  read  the 
“Origin  of  Species.”  But  the  marshalling 
of  facts,  the  evident  honesty  of  purpose 
and  the  humility  of  Darwin  threw  me  over 
to  his  side.  And  when  the  war  between 
science  and  religion,  so  full  of  tragedy  and 


[  16  ] 

comedy,  was  on,  I  found  myself  in  general 
sympathy  with  the  standpoint  of  science. 
Why  this  should  be  I  could  not  under¬ 
stand.  I  believed  the  Christian  Faith; 
why  was  it  not  possible  to  support  its 
ardent  defenders?  I  did  not  then  know 
that  in  ecclesiastical  battles  the  noisy 
champions  come  first  to  the  front,  and 
that  the  strongest,  wisest,  and  most 
thoughtful  of  the  theologians  quietly 
wait,  study  the  situation,  and  reconstruct 
their  lines  of  action. 

One  day  I  passed  across  the  hall  from 
the  lecture  room  of  my  conservative  the¬ 
ological  professor,  who  spent  his  time 
defending  his  conception  of  the  Faith  by 
quoting  proof  texts  taken  from  Old  Tes¬ 
tament  and  New  Testament,  with  little 
regard  for  their  historic  setting,  to  the 
room  of  a  young  professor  who  had  caught 
the  spirit  of  the  modern  Christian  scholar, 
and  who,  when  faced  with  a  critical  ques- 


[  17  ] 

tion,  said,  “Gentlemen,  it  is  not  for  me  to 
defend  the  Faith.  A  true  faith  will  defend 
itself.  It  is  my  duty  to  guide  you  with 
open  mind,  humble  spirit,  and  pure  heart 
to  the  Truth,  the  Truth  alone,  wherever 
it  may  lead  you;  and  be  ye  sure  that  it 
will  always  lead  you  to  a  fuller  knowledge 
of  Christ,  who  is  the  Truth.  Hold  as  for 
your  life  to  that  attitude  of  mind.  Seek 
the  Truth,  and  the  Truth  shall  make  you 
free.”  From  that  hour  I  have  been  free: 
not  free  from  questions,  problems,  trou¬ 
bles,  and  doubts,  but  at  the  very  founda¬ 
tion  of  my  faith  confident,  serene,  and 
free.  God  as  Creator,  All-Father,  Loving 
Saviour,  guiding  Spirit  leading  on  to 
Truth,  can  never  be  dethroned.  Every 
revelation  through  science,  philosophy, 
ancient  religions,  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
tested  by  higher  and  lower  criticism,  leads 
and  ever  will  lead  to  a  fuller  knowledge  of 
Him.  God,  His  universe,  His  children, 


[  18  ] 

are  bound  together  in  one  consistent, 
living  unity;  He  and  Nature  cannot  deny 
each  other.  Whatever,  therefore,  seems  to 
give  way,  whether  it  be  some  outwork  of 
the  Faith  or  some  inner  well  of  spiritual 
supply  upon  which  the  life  of  the  Christian 
Faith  seems  to  depend,  the  Truth  which 
is  God  revealed  through  nature  and  man 
will  stand;  and  therein  is  my  trust,  my 
life.  The  best  defence  of  the  Faith  is  in 
the  seeking  and  standing  for  the  Truth, 
while  living  in  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  who  is 
the  Truth.  Herein  is  freedom. 

I  am  not  and  never  have  been  a 
scholar.  The  results  of  modern  thought  in 
religion,  science,  and  philosophy  I  have 
had  to  take  at  second  hand.  My  judg¬ 
ment  has  been  dependent,  first,  upon  the 
religious  principles  inherited  through  his¬ 
tory  and  parentage  and  gained  by  experi¬ 
ence;  then  upon  my  confidence  in  the 
scholars  and  middlemen  who  present  the 


[  19  ] 

case  of  the  fresh  revelation  of  truth  or 
error;  and,  third,  upon  the  way  in  which 
the  truths  find  me  and  meet  my  moral  and 
spiritual  nature:  for  each  man  must  make 
his  own  decision  for  himself.  Even  New¬ 
man  acted  upon  the  right  of  his  private 
judgment  in  deciding  to  submit  to  Rome. 

It  is  impossible  to  tell  fully  or  even 
sketch  the  development  of  my  religious 
thought  from  1873  t0  this  day.  All  that  I 
can  do  is  to  touch  upon  a  few  of  the  salient 
features. 

The  theories  of  the  inerrancy  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  of  the  inspiration  of 
every  word,  received  their  fatal  blow  in 
the  sixties  and  seventies,  though  thou¬ 
sands  on  thousands  of  the  faithful  know 
it  not  at  this  day.  I  can  still  hear  the  tone 
of  a  strong  preacher  ring  out  with  the 
sound  of  an  alarm,  “If  I  could  not  believe 
that  Joshua  made  the  sun  stand  still  in 
the  heavens,  I  should  lose  faith  in  the 


[  20  ] 

Bible  and  in  God.”  Just  as  real  to  me, 
too,  are  the  echoes  of  sad  voices  of  faithful 
men  and  women  bewailing  the  fact  that 
their  rector  had  said  that  perhaps  the 
incidents  in  the  story  of  the  Garden  of 
Eden,  of  Adam,  Eve,  and  the  serpent,  were 
not  historic  facts.  For  hard  upon  the  heels 
of  the  iconoclasts  created  by  discoveries 
of  science  came  the  even  more  dangerous 
literary  critics.  How  well  I  remember  the 
first  time  that  I  read  the  sentence  of 
Coleridge,  that  the  test  of  the  inspiration 
of  the  Scriptures  is  in  the  way  in  which 
they  “find  you,  the  way  in  which  they 
touch  your  moral  and  spiritual  nature”; 
and  the  dictum  of  Jowett,  “Interpret  the 
Bible  as  any  other  book”  —  phrases 
which  seemed  to  give  the  death  stroke  to 
much  that  I  held  dear.  Rightly  under¬ 
stood,  however,  they  were  the  Magna 
Charta  of  modern  Biblical  criticism.  “Es¬ 
says  and  Reviews,”  published  in  1 86 1 , 


[  21  ] 

caused  a  deep  sensation.  The  first  essay 
by  young  Frederick  Temple,  entitled  “The 
Education  of  the  World,”  placed  the  Old 
Testament  upon  an  historic  basis  and  over¬ 
threw  the  popular,  orthodox  conception 
of  the  sacred  books.  Bishop  Wilberforce, 
of  Oxford,  at  the  time  the  most  eloquent 
preacher  and  leader  of  the  Church  of 
England,  solemnly  demanded  that  all  the 
essayists  be  compelled  to  withdraw  from 
the  ministry.  It  is  suggestive  of  the  quick 
changes  of  the  times  that  the  same 
Temple  became  Archbishop  of  Canter¬ 
bury.  What  was  there  left  for  the  faithful 
to  believe  when  they  were  told  that 
scholars  and  critics  had  proved  that  much 
that  Moses  was  recorded  to  have  written 
was  written  generations  after  his  death; 
that  it  was  surely  impossible  for  him  to 
have  written  the  account  of  his  own 
burial;  that  many  of  the  Psalms  of  David 
were  not  composed  by  David;  that  the 


[  22  ] 


sacred  books  had  been  compiled  and 
tampered  with;  that  many  of  the  proph¬ 
ecies  did  not  foretell  events;  that  historic 
facts  as  stated  were  untrue  or  no  facts  at 
all?  Even  a  Bishop  of  the  Church,  a 
Missionary  Bishop,  beloved  by  the  Zulus 
for  his  heroic  work,  Colenso  of  Natal,  in 
“The  Pentateuch  and  Book  of  Joshua,” 
published  in  1863,  rejected  the  Mosaic 
authorship  of  the  first  five  books.  He 
was  deposed  and  excommunicated  by  his 
Metropolitan,  but  upon  an  appeal  to  the 
Ecclesiastical  Court  in  England,  the  deci¬ 
sion  of  the  Metropolitan  was  reversed 
and  he  stayed  in  the  field. 

The  wave  of  questions,  doubts,  and 
denials  swept  on.  Of  course  the  cham¬ 
pions  of  the  Faith  gave  answer  to  the 
critics  and  enemies,  each  in  his  own  way 
fervid,  strong,  specious,  honest.  The 
young  people  of  the  day  were  bewildered. 
Their  loss  of  faith  was  tragic.  There  grad- 


[  23  ] 

ually  emerged,  however,  a  sense  of  confi¬ 
dence  that  spiritual  truths  were  forging  to 
the  front,  that  the  Old  Testament  had 
higher  purposes  than  that  of  teaching 
science  and  showing  forth  miracles.  The 
patriarchs,  men  of  their  own  generation, 
though  touched  with  the  frailties  of  hu¬ 
man  nature,  became  to  us  real  men,  men 
inspired  of  God;  the  Psalms,  whether 
David  or  others  wrote  them,  were  sung 
for  their  own  sake;  the  prophets  were 
statesmen  of  their  day,  setting  forth  in 
language  of  their  time  the  principles  of 
righteousness  and  anticipating  nobler 
times  to  come. 

Just  as  we  were  settling  our  minds  to 
appreciate  and  rejoice  in  these  revela¬ 
tions,  the  critic  moved  from  the  Old  Tes¬ 
tament  to  the  New.  In  these  books  and 
epistles  we  had  or  thought  we  had  facts, 
stated  in  terms  of  comparatively  modern 
history.  But  here  again  traditions,  be- 


[  24  ] 

liefs,  and  beloved  narratives  were  ques- 
tioned  or  denied.  The  recognition  of  the 
orderly  working  of  nature  weakened  con¬ 
fidence  in  the  miraculous,  and  as  years 
passed  theologians  and  exegetical  schol¬ 
ars,  esteemed  conservative  and  orthodox, 
interpreted  scenes,  teachings,  and  epistles 
in  a  way  that  would  have  astounded  them¬ 
selves  ten  years  before. 

To  the  great  body  of  the  people  the 
victory  seemed  to  be  with  the  critics, 
the  champions  of  science,  the  exponents 
of  materialism,  and  many  leaders  of  the 
Faith  were  depressed.  There  arose,  how¬ 
ever,  scholars,  teachers,  exegetes,  and  theo¬ 
logians  who  had  been  quietly  studying  and 
thinking,  sifting  the  researches  of  the  Ger¬ 
mans,  analyzing  the  imaginative  results  of 
French  scholarship,  testing  all  in  the  quiet, 
sensible  temper  of  Englishmen  who,  firm 
in  their  confidence  in  some  facts,  laid  em¬ 
phasis  upon  the  spiritual  temper  and  rev- 


[  25  ] 

elations  of  the  Scriptures.  Those  who  af¬ 
fected  me  were,  in  Germany,  Ewald;  and  in 
England,  Coleridge,  Robertson,  Maurice, 
Lightfoot,  and  Westcott;  in  this  country, 
Bushnell,  my  friends  Phillips  Brooks  and 
Alexander  V.  G.  Allen,  and  others. 

The  thought  of  God,  the  Omnipotent 
Creator,  the  King,  who  set  creation  going 
and  from  His  distant  throne  governed 
nature  and  man  as  an  autocrat,  interfer¬ 
ing  with  nature’s  laws  as  he  willed,  pun¬ 
ishing  the  wicked,  rewarding  the  guilty, 
fell  into  the  background  of  my  thought 
before  the  revelation  of  the  Heavenly 
Father,  who,  as  Creator,  Saviour,  lives  in 
and  through  nature  and  man.  He  is  im¬ 
manent  —  within  us;  His  spirit  transfig¬ 
ures  us. 

I  was  baffled  again  and  again  by  the 
incompleteness  of  the  definition  of  God. 
Some  theologians  described  God  in  such 
mechanical  or  logical  terms  that  it  seemed 


[  26  ] 

sometimes  as  if  He  were  a  mathematical 
proposition.  But  because  God  is  infinite 
in  power  and  love,  we  hail  the  mystery  of 
His  being  which  baffles  our  powers  of  de¬ 
scription.  The  shafts  of  light  strike  up 
heavenward;  we  follow  each;  we  cannot 
see  them  mingle,  but  we  know  that  some¬ 
where  they  become  one.  I  cannot  de¬ 
scribe  the  Triune  God;  no  creed  can 
describe  Him;  we  would  not  worship  Him 
if  it  could.  We  know,  however,  that  the 
Lord  our  God  is  One  God;  we  would  hold 
that  truth  though  the  heavens  fall.  In  the 
life  of  Jesus  we  see  the  very  character  of 
God  Himself:  “He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath 
seen  the  Father”;  and  in  the  Spirit  which 
compasses  the  world  and  inspires  every 
child  of  God  we  feel  the  presence  of  God 
Himself.  One  tragedy  of  religious  faith  is 
in  the  incompleteness  of  language.  That 
word  “person”  which  connotes  so  differ¬ 
ent  a  thing  to  us  from  that  which  it  did  in 


[  27  ] 

Latin  and  among  other  peoples  has  led 
millions  of  people  astray;  they  have  tried 
to  make  three  persons  one  person;  they 
have  been  driven  to  a  logical  Tritheism; 
or,  breaking  from  Tritheism,  have  lost  the 
truth  and  mystery  of  the  Incarnation 
and  of  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

No  discovery  of  science,  no  higher  or 
lower  criticism,  has  taken  from  us  our 
faith  in  God  who  is  God  the  Father,  God 
revealed  in  His  Son  Jesus,  God  v/orking 
through  His  Spirit;  and  when  we  realize 
how  our  conception  of  the  universe  has 
been  enlarged  ten  thousand  times,  how 
the  history  of  the  planets,  of  this  little 
world  and  of  the  upgrowth  of  man  from 
lower  animal  forms  to  his  divine  estate, 
has  opened  wondrous  revelations,  we 
have  a  conception  of  God  ten  thousand 
times  greater,  nobler,  and  more  spiritual 
than  was  that  of  our  fathers.  He,  so  won¬ 
drous,  dwelleth  in  us  and  we  in  Him. 


[  28  ] 

We  used  to  be  taught  that  we  were  born 
in  sin;  that  each  one  of  us,  through  the 
taint  of  Adam’s  sin  and  the  fact  of  our 
own  personal  guilt,  would  be  lost  unless 
the  innocent  victim  prepared  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world  had  borne  our 
sins  and  by  His  sufferings  and  death  had 
appeased  the  anger  of  God  and  ransomed 
us.  The  eternal  truth  of  the  innocent  suf¬ 
fering  for  the  guilty  was  expressed  in  me¬ 
chanical  and  sometimes  hideous  terms. 
With  what  relief,  with  what  a  leap  of 
joy  people  read  the  sermons  of  Robert¬ 
son  and  the  writings  of  Bushnell  on  the 
Atonement.  To  be  sure,  these  men  were 
heterodox,  but  their  ring  was  true;  and 
to  the  young  the  ring  of  truth  is  the  final 
note. 

The  life  of  Jesus,  so  loving,  winning, 
and  heroic,  called  us;  we  lost  ourselves  in 
Him;  He  was  a  real  man;  He  was  our 
Ideal,  our  brother,  our  life,  and  we  went 


[  29  ] 

with  him  to  the  Cross.  He  suffered  for  us, 
of  course;  His  was  the  complete  sacrifice,  in 
the  same  spirit  in  which  the  young  hero 
suffered  and  died  at  Gettysburg  for  his 
country  and  ourselves,  and  we,  won  by 
Him,  entered  into  the  spirit  of  His  life 
and  were  saved  from  disloyalty,  sin,  and 
moral  death.  The  Resurrection  of  Jesus 
was  the  token,  the  seal  of  the  truth  that 
through  such  a  life  and  death  must  come 
spiritual  victory  and  immortality.  And 
the  history  of  the  Apostles  and  the  Church 
testified  to  the  power  and  presence  of 
God,  revealed  and  working  through  His 
Spirit. 

When  with  these  revelations  we  turned 
back  to  the  Scriptures,  the  story  of  God’s 
dealings  with  His  people  took  on  a  new  and 
different  perspective.  What  used  to  be 
important,  even  essential,  what  were  es¬ 
teemed  historic  facts,  fell  into  the  back¬ 
ground.  Modern  science  had  convinced 


us  that  a  just  God  would  not  or  could  not 
autocratically  break  through  the  laws  of 
nature  to  work  wonders;  but  modern  sci¬ 
ence  had  not  and  has  not  such  a  complete 
knowledge  of  God  and  His  methods  of 
work  as  to  assure  us  that  we  can  fathom 
the  meaning  of  every  act;  modern  psy¬ 
chology,  modern  science,  recognize  laws, 
habits,  and  expressions  of  nature  as  yet 
beyond  our  ken;  and  what  relation  these 
have  to  the  unusual  or  to  what  seem  to  be 
the  suspension  or  breaking  of  natural  law 
we  know  not.  We  wait  for  fresh  discov¬ 
eries,  we  welcome  every  shaft  of  truth,  we 
believe  what  we  may  consistently  believe, 
and  we  know  that  no  discovery  which  is 
true  can  shake  our  faith  in  Him  who  is  the 
Truth:  in  Him,  I  say,  for  it  is  the  Christ, 
His  life,  His  character,  His  spirit,  that  we 
cling  to  as  our  salvation. 

I  have  to  say  frankly,  therefore,  that 
many  events  that  I  used  to  think  mi- 


[  31  ] 

raculous,  or  what  were  called  supernatural, 
I  cannot  so  esteem  now.  The  incident 
may  be  just  as  wondrous,  if  the  story  re¬ 
veals  a  fresh  phase  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  I 
still  believe  that  there  are  events  at  pres¬ 
ent  inexplicable  under  any  theory  of  our 
present  knowledge  of  nature’s  laws;  mi¬ 
raculous  we  may  call  them.  Whether  soon, 
or  in  the  distant  future,  or  ever,  they  will 
be  revealed  to  us  as  part  of  the  workings  of 
nature  as  men  may  then  know,  it  is  of 
little  moment  to  me.  The  life  and  char¬ 
acter  of  God  as  revealed  in  His  Son  Jesus 
Christ  cannot  be  hidden  nor  his  leadership 
of  the  sons  of  men  lost. 

The  Great  Boston  Fire  in  1872  de¬ 
stroyed  Old  Trinity  Church  on  Summer 
Street,  where  Phillips  Brooks  by  a  min¬ 
istry  of  three  years  in  Boston  had  so  in¬ 
terpreted  the  Scriptures,  creeds,  and  faith 
as  to  bring  a  new  Gospel  of  love,  peace, 
and  joy  to  hundreds  of  people;  a  Gospel 


[  32  ] 

which  in  its  fulness  his  beloved  mother,  of 
New  England’s  stern  theology,  could  never 
bring  herself  fully  to  accept.  The  New 
Trinity  Church  was  not  consecrated  until 
1877.  Hence  for  over  four  years  the  con¬ 
gregation  of  Trinity  Church,  and  the 
steadily  increasing  number  of  people  from 
all  churches  and  no  church,  worshipped  in 
Huntington  Hall  of  the  Institute  of  Tech¬ 
nology.  One  can  hardly  picture  a  place 
less  adapted  to  worship  or  more  depress¬ 
ing  to  a  preacher  of  the  truths  and  mys¬ 
teries  of  the  Christian  Faith. 

It  was  there,  however,  that  Phillips 
Brooks  really  found  himself  and  his  rela¬ 
tions  to  the  tide  of  changing  thought. 
Gaining  a  firmer  hold  upon  the  situation, 
ever  loyal  to  Christ  and  the  Church,  he 
had  been  reading  and  thinking,  knowing 
that  the  freedom  of  thought  which  comes 
with  a  determination  to  seek  and  find  the 
Truth  would  bring  him  fuller  knowledge 


[  33  ] 

of  God  and  of  His  Son  Jesus  Christ.  Hav¬ 
ing  gotten  his  bearings  and  confident 
in  the  righteousness  of  his  position,  he 
poured  forth  with  his  torrent  of  eloquence 
thoughts,  interpretations,  and  revelations 
for  which  the  people  had  been  yearn¬ 
ing.  I  knew  him  intimately  as  a  young 
man  knows  an  elder,  and  in  talks  in  his 
study  wherein  I  was  a  willing  pupil  I 
watched  his  development  to  the  fulness  of 
his  powers  in  the  later  years  of  Trinity’s 
pulpit.  What  he  said  in  his  study  he 
preached  in  the  Hall  of  Technology;  and 
I,  more  familiar  than  most  with  his 
thought,  could  feel  the  sigh  of  relief  rise 
from  the  congregation  as  he  lifted  from 
their  lives  shadow  after  shadow  of  de¬ 
pressing  thought  which  had  settled  upon 
them  through  the  theology  of  their  par¬ 
ents  and  earlier  generations. 

Of  the  many  questions  besetting  the 
people,  especially  college  students  and 


[  34  ] 


those  who  were  closest  to  modern  thought, 
I  mention  only  three  in  order  to  suggest 
how  they  were  met  by  Phillips  Brooks. 
Of  course  other  preachers  and  writers 
were  meeting  them  too  in  their  way,  but 
his  method  I  know. 

One  question  which  would  brook  no 
specious  answer  was,  “How  can  you  recon¬ 
cile  with  divine  inspiration  the  cruelties 
and  immoralities  of  the  Old  Testament,  in 
wThich  God  seemed  to  delight,  the  stories 
of  the  massacre  of  the  Amalekites,  of  the 
deliberate  murder  of  Sisera  by  Jael;  the 
Song  of  the  Psalmist,  ‘  Blessed  shall  he  be 
that  taketh  thy  children,  and  throweth 
them  against  the  stones’?”  It  is  passing 
strange  to  us  now  how  high-minded  and 
otherwise  truth-loving  men  would  juggle 
with  facts,  distort  language,  and  evade 
conclusions  in  order  to  bolster  up  a  theory 
of  inspiration  or  an  interpretation  which 
they  deemed  essential  to  the  Faith. 


[  35  ] 

How  well  I  recall  the  voice  and  flashing 
eye  of  Phillips  Brooks  as,  standing  by  the 
lectern  pulpit  in  Huntington  Hall,  he 
lifted  the  people  to  such  a  spiritual  con¬ 
ception  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Old  Tes¬ 
tament  as  to  enable  them  to  see  how  God, 
assuming  the  freedom  of  men’s  will  to  do 
evil  or  good,  had  patiently  led  them  up 
through  childhood  and  savagery  until  they 
could  begin  to  appreciate  the  glory  of  His 
purity,  truth,  and  love  as  revealed  in  the 
incarnation  of  His  Son.  Facts,  interpreta¬ 
tions,  truths,  errors,  shook  themselves 
into  right  perspective,  and  the  congrega¬ 
tion  realized  how  the  whole  creation  had 
“groaned  and  travailed”  until  the  day 
when  the  word  wras  made  flesh  and  men 
“  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only 
begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and 
truth.” 

Again,  a  hard  theology  which  had  dom¬ 
inated  the  thought  of  the  Puritans  had 


[  36  ] 

taught  that  only  those  who  responded 
consciously  to  the  call  of  Christ  would  be 
saved.  Of  the  great  mass  of  men,  women, 
and  children  only  a  remnant  were  to  be 
found  worthy,  and  at  the  death  of  each 
one  the  question  of  the  elect  or  damned 
was  settled  for  eternity.  We  wonder  now 
how  men  and  women  of  sweet  Christian 
temper  would  reiterate  these  things  and 
believe  them. 

From  New  England’s  families  heroic 
missionaries  had  gone  by  the  score  to 
preach  this  grim  Gospel  to  the  heathen 
and  to  snatch  the  brands  from  the  burn¬ 
ing  of  hell.  This  had  been  throughout  the 
ages  a  dominant  motive,  of  Roman  Cath¬ 
olic  and  Puritan,  of  Ignatius  Loyola  and 
the  Baptist  William  Carey.  Voices  of 
protest  were  heard  from  free  thinkers, 
some  Unitarians  and  Universalists;  but 
the  dogma  stood  firm,  and  mothers  wept 
over  their  wayward  sons  who  turned  away 


[  37  ] 

from  such  a  faith  while  the  missionaries 
continued  to  go  forth. 

I  can  now  hear  the  voice  of  Phillips 
Brooks  as  he  pleaded  with  the  people  for  a 
return  to  St.  Paul’s  teaching,  “Whom  ye 
ignorantly  worship,  Him  declare  I  unto 
you.”  Revolting  against  the  doctrine  of 
total  depravity,  he  drove  home  again  and 
again  the  truth  that,  while  of  course  all 
children  inherit  character  and  taints  of 
evil,  myriads  of  children  are  not  born  to  be 
damned.  With  all  the  eloquence  at  his 
command  he  repeated  again  and  again 
that  every  child  is  a  child  of  God;  and  that 
the  Church,  knowing  this,  calls  all  to  bap¬ 
tism,  the  symbol  of  God’s  recognition,  the 
gate  whereby  each  child  as  he  grows  older 
has  the  assurance  that  he  has  been  brought 
visibly  into  God’s  family.  His  words  fell 
like  refreshing  rain  upon  a  thirsty  field, 
and  the  faith  and  joy  of  the  congregation 
rose  up  to  meet  them. 


[  38  ] 

Of  course  he  was  preaching  what  Cole¬ 
ridge,  Maurice,  and  Bushnell  and  his  own 
thought  and  prayer  had  taught  him;  but 
through  them  and  a  fresh  study  of  the 
Scriptures  he  had  entered  into  the  heart 
of  God  and  the  Spirit  of  His  Son.  Others 
also  preached  and  wrote,  and  the  Chris¬ 
tian  truth  of  man’s  divine  sonship  was  re¬ 
deemed.  Strange,  is  it  not,  that  the  sim¬ 
plest  and  most  fundamental  of  Christian 
teachings  can  be  hidden  for  centuries 
under  a  mechanical  system  of  doctrine  or 
a  materialistic  conception  of  the  Christian 
faith?  “The  nerve  of  missions  is  cut,” 
cried  the  Orthodox.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  nerve  of  missions  received  new  life; 
and  since  that  day  the  Christian  mission¬ 
aries  have,  like  St.  Paul,  gone  forth  with 
joy  to  bring  the  good  news  of  the  Son  of 
God  and  to  work  with  the  heathen  and 
their  ancient  faiths  for  ever  fuller  faith  in 
God  and  a  deeper  knowledge  of  the  Son. 


[  39  ] 

One  other  truth,  more  fundamental  than 
either  of  these,  was  redeemed  and  brought 
forth  for  our  safety  and  strength.  At  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century  New  Eng¬ 
land  had  fought  over  again  an  ancient 
battle.  The  transcendent  theology  of  our 
Puritan  fathers  had  so  elevated  the  divin¬ 
ity  of  Christ  as  to  make  His  manhood  un¬ 
real.  The  reaction  had  come  in  the  pro¬ 
test  of  Unitarianism,  which,  going  to  the 
other  extreme,  so  emphasized  His  human¬ 
ity  as  to  make  of  Him  little  more  than  a 
superman.  This  was  an  ancient  battle,  I 
say,  for  in  the  early  Church  the  same 
streams  of  thought  met  each  other.  The 
issue  was  as  clear  then  as  it  was  a  gen¬ 
eration  ago.  The  Apostles’  and  Nicene 
Creeds  were  reassertions  of  the  early 
Church  in  the  full  humanity  of  Jesus, 
which  was  repeated  in  the  Councils.  The 
facts  of  His  life  here  on  earth  were  given 
in  the  simplest  terms,  “In  Jesus  Christ 


[  40  ] 

His  only  Son  Our  Lord;  Who  was  con¬ 
ceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  Born  of  the 
Virgin  Mary;  Suffered  under  Pontius 
Pilate,  Was  crucified,  dead,  and  buried; 
He  descended  into  hell;  the  third  day  he 
rose  from  the  dead;  He  ascended  into 
heaven.” 

The  iteration  of  these  facts  brought  out 
the  great  truth  of  the  Incarnation,  stead¬ 
ied  the  Church  for  a  time  and  restrained 
her  from  so  dehumanizing  Jesus  as  to 
make  Him  unreal.  This  latter  tendency 
has  been  popularly  assumed  to  be  the 
note  of  Orthodoxy,  while  an  emphasis  on 
His  humanity  has  the  note  of  Heterodoxy; 
and  there  are  those  to-day  who  are  still 
afraid  of  a  full  recognition  of  the  manhood 
of  Jesus.  Of  course  there  is  danger  here  as 
there  is  in  the  other  extreme,  but  because 
of  possible  danger  we  cannot  shrink  from 
the  facts  and  the  truth. 

Phillips  Brooks,  with  the  Fathers  of 


[  41  ] 

ancient  days  and  the  scholars  of  these 
days,  had  no  fear  of  revealing  the  boy 
Jesus  at  Nazareth  and  Jerusalem  — 
Jesus  the  young  carpenter,  Jesus  with 
brothers,  Jesus  the  young  preacher,  the 
upholder  of  practical  righteousness,  the 
Jesus  so  friendly  with  all  sorts  of  people 
as  to  bring  on  Him  the  condemnation 
of  the  respectable;  so  dependent  upon 
friends  that  in  His  agony  in  the  garden 
He  must  have  His  comrades  to  watch 
with  Him;  so  human  that  He  knew  not 
what  the  future  would  bring  forth;  so  full 
of  courage  as  to  withstand  the  whole  band 
of  orthodox  champions  and  Sabbatarians; 
so  idealistic  as  to  set  before  men  the  high¬ 
est  standards  of  moral  action. 

Throughout  my  boyhood  and  younger 
manhood,  whenever  questions  would  rise 
as  to  some  word  or  act  of  Jesus,  we  were 
told,  “This  He  did  as  a  man”;  and,  “This 
He  said  as  the  Son  of  God.”  Our  teachers 


[  42  ] 

seemed  to  have  such  an  ability  to  strike 
either  note  at  their  pleasure  as  to  give 
proof  of  a  consistent  scheme  of  doctrine. 
It  was  not  consistent:  we  felt  it.  With 
what  relief,  therefore,  we  turned  to  Jesus 
Himself,  “Ecce  Homo,”  and  with  what 
faith  we  saw  in  and  through  Him  the  very 
face  of  God  the  Father.  He  came  forth 
from  God,  Very  God  of  Very  God.  But 
only  in  the  fulness  of  His  humanity  could 
He  mediate  or  bring  to  us  the  fulness  of 
God. 

Throughout  these  fifty  years  young 
people  by  the  score  of  thousands  dropped 
beliefs,  opinions,  interpretations,  which 
they  had  been  taught  were  essential  to 
the  Christian  Faith.  I  recall  now  the 
anxious  face  of  a  Harvard  student  who 
came  hurriedly  into  the  Preachers’  Room 
and  said,  “I  was  brought  up  at  home  a 
Christian  boy;  I  came  here  to  college  and 
hoped  to  remain  a  follower  of  Christ;  but 


[  43  ] 

I  am  no  longer  a  Christian;  my  faith  is 
gone.”  “What  is  the  trouble?”  I  asked. 
“I  cannot  any 
world  was  created  in  six  days,  and  a  friend 
has  told  me  that  I  cannot  deny  that  and 
remain  a  Christian.”  Would  you  believe 
that  that  conversation  took  place  in  the 
late  eighties  —  and  I  suppose  may  take 
place  even  now?  With  what  dismay  the 
boy  looked  at  me  as  I  answered,  “If  that  is 
the  case,  I  am  not  a  Christian  either”;  and 
how  his  face  lighted  up  as  I  told  him  of  the 
spiritual  purpose  of  the  Scriptures  and 
their  essential  truths. 

Great  numbers  of  young  people  were 
lost  to  the  Church  and  the  Faith  by  the  in¬ 
ability  of  many  teachers  and  preachers  to 
adjust  their  vision  to  the  fuller 
fault  was  not  altogether  theirs,  for  it  is 
our  duty  in  proving  all  things  to  hold  fast 
that  which  is  good;  and  it  was  very  diffi¬ 
cult  then  to  discriminate  which  was  the 


light.  The 


longer  believe  that  the 


[  44  ] 

good.  Militant  and  brilliant  scientists, 
like  Huxley,  ignorant  themselves  of  the 
essentials  of  the  Christian  Faith,  assumed 
that  in  following  science  to  the  end,  men 
must  lose  their  faith. 

Young  men  and  women  of  moral  and 
spiritual  slackness  sometimes  used  their 
doubts  as  an  excuse  for  the  dropping  of 
their  faith  altogether.  “I  have  lost  so 
much  of  the  religion  that  I  was  taught  to 
hold  that  I  do  not  know  now  where  I  am: 
I  give  it  all  up.”  What,  however,  I  have 
tried  to  drive  home  is  that  in  the  experi¬ 
ences  through  which  my  generation  passed, 
young  men  found  themselves  changing 
the  emphasis  and  perspective  of  their  boy¬ 
hood  beliefs,  and  at  the  same  time  gaining 
a  stronger  hold  upon  the  fundamental 
doctrines  of  the  Christian  Faith.  I  know 
that  through  this  testing  process,  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ  was  deeply  embedded  in  the 
lives  of  the  men  and  women  of  my  day. 


[  +5  ] 

They  have  been  the  upbuilders  of  the 
churches  and  the  supporters  of  all  that  is 
best  in  our  civic  life. 


II 


Up  to  this  point  I  have  been  trying  to 
sketch  the  development  of  my  thought 
and  of  my  faith  during  the  last  fifty  years. 
This  would  be  presumptuous  and  egotis¬ 
tical  were  it  not  that  I  believe  that  my 
experience  reflects  that  of  thousands  of 
others  who  have  lived  through  the  same 
period,  or  a  part  of  it,  and  who  may  re¬ 
ceive  some  help  by  this  personal  recital. 

Before  taking  up  the  next,  and  in  some 
respects  the  more  difficult,  part  of  my  sub¬ 
ject,  may  I  recall  again  the  tremendous 
changes  in  every  department  of  thought 
and  life  during  the  half-century.  Biog¬ 
raphy,  poetry,  history,  art,  and  philoso¬ 
phy  have  given  their  reactions.  These 
changes  have  altered  the  face  of  the  world, 
and  have  revolutionized  our  social  and  po¬ 
litical  conditions.  In  other  words,  the 


1/ 


[  47  ] 

inner  hidden  forces  of  thought  and  life 
have  created  new  forms  of  expression  or 
new  interpretations  of  older  forms. 

The  same  is  true  in  the  sphere  of  reli¬ 
gion.  The  changes  in  spiritual  outlook, 
the  fresh  interpretations  of  Scriptures,  de¬ 
mand  new  forms  of  expression  or  radical 
reinterpretations  of  the  ancient  forms. 

To  put  the  problem  again  in  a  personal 
way.  I  was  brought  up  as  a  boy  and  col¬ 
lege  student  to  certain  conceptions  of  the 
Christian  Faith,  interpretations  of  the  Bi¬ 
ble,  the  Creeds,  and  other  standards  of  the 
Church.  The  question  now  had  to  be  an¬ 
swered,  “How  could  I,  who  during  fifty 
years  passed  through  the  changes  of 
thought  which  I  have  described,  adjust 
them  to  or  express  them  through  the  forms 
of  faith,  the  Creeds,  and  other  standards 
of  the  Church  which  were  framed  centu¬ 
ries  ago  ?  ’ ’  Here  again  I  was  simply  typical 
of  thousands  of  others.  There  is  no  more 


[  48  ] 

delicate,  vital,  and  persistent  question 
asked  to-day  by  hosts  of  men  and  women 
than  this  one,  as  to  how  their  religious 
faith  as  they  now  hold  it  can  be  honestly 
and  consistently  expressed  in  the  ancient 
Creeds  or  in  any  creed.  And  yet  the  Faith 
is  in  these  people,  and  it  demands  expres¬ 
sion. 

Theoretically  there  are  persons  such  as 
scientists  and  philosophers  who  are  such 
isolated  seekers  for  truth  that  they  are  as 
free  as  if  they  were  in  a  vacuum  to  carry 
on  their  studies,  convictionless  and  creed¬ 
less;  though  even  they  have  to  work  from 
some  hypothesis. 

From  this  theory  arises  a  common  no¬ 
tion  that  people  may  work  out  their  reli¬ 
gious  problems  in  complete  freedom  apart 
from  any  practical  relation.  The  fact  is, 
however,  that  we  are  men  and  women,  liv¬ 
ing  in  social  relations  with  others.  What¬ 
ever  may  be  our  theories  and  ideals,  we 


[  49  ] 


have  got  to  bring  them  into  contact  with 
practical  thought  and  life:  we  “must  ally 
ourselves  with  the  imperfect.” 

In  the  working-out  of  the  problem  of 
the  honest  expression  of  my  beliefs,  I  had 
to  realize  that  I  was  a  member  of  society, 
and  that  unless  I  were  a  consummate  ego¬ 
tist,  I  must  check  up  my  beliefs  with  the 
experiences  of  history  and  with  the  every¬ 
day  life  about  me.  I  realized  also  that  I 
was  a  member  and  minister  of  Christ’s 
Church.  The  critical  question  that  I  was 
compelled  to  ask  of  myself  and  answer 
honestly  was,  “How  is  it  possible  for  me 
to  live  in  the  free  air  of  the  search  for 
truth,  meet  the  intellectual  changes  as 
they  come,  remain  in  that  loyalty,  and  ex¬ 
press  it  in  form  of  language  as  well  as  in 
life?” 

Is  there  any  one  to-day  who  is  not 
thinking  out  that  problem  ?  The  recital  of 
my  experience,  as  a  typical  one,  may  help. 


[  50  ] 

From  time  to  time  four  possible  alter¬ 
natives  have  been  open: 

i.  Why  should  I  not  retain  my  free¬ 
dom  to  think  and  search  for  the  truth 
in  a  creedless  church?  Unhampered  by 
forms  of  words,  at  liberty  to  express  my 
faith  and  all  its  changes  from  day  to  day,  I 
could  live  in  intellectual  honesty,  and  sin¬ 
cerely  believe  and  speak  what  I  believed. 

For  one  reason:  I  have  not  been  able  to 
find  any  creedless  church,  if  by  creed  we 
mean  a  form  of  expression  of  the  faith 
that  is  in  us.  Whenever  a  conference  of 
what  is  supposed  to  be  such  a  church  is 
held,  the  members  always  have  some  com¬ 
mon  standing  ground  of  faith,  even  if  it 
be  only  the  creed  that  “right  is  right”; 
or  that,  “If  there  be  a  God,  that  God  is 
love.”  Both  these  creeds,  any  creeds,  are 
a  limitation  on  one’s  complete  liberty  of 
thought  and  search  for  truth. 

My  problem  was,  therefore,  not  to  find 


[  51  ] 

a  convictionless  and  creedless  church,  but 
to  find  one  sufficiently  so  to  satisfy  my 
desire  for  liberty.  Edward  Everett  Hale 
once  told  me  that  churches  should  make 
new  creeds  every  year  as  birds  build  their 
nests. 

I  did  not  happen  to  find  any  church  of 
that  sort;  and  if  I  had,  I  question  how  long 
the  church  would  hold  together,  or  what 
practical  or  charitable  work  it  could  do, 
if  the  members  discussed  throughout  the 
year  the  manufacture  of  a  new  creed.  In 
fact,  such  a  church  must  of  itself  disinte¬ 
grate  into  “individualism.”  And  pure  in¬ 
dividualism  does  not  bring  freedom,  but 
isolation  and  bondage  to  ourselves,  our 
moods  and  habits  of  thought. 

2.  At  the  other  extreme  were  churches 
which  had  buttressed  their  faith  with  long 
creeds  and  catechisms,  entering  into  and 
binding  the  details  of  religious  thought 
and  life. 


[  52  ] 

The  members  of  these  churches  were 
consciously  bound  together  by  a  cove¬ 
nant,  and  if  any  one  deliberately  broke 
the  convenant,  he  in  all  honor  must  retire. 
This  attitude  has  strength  up  to  a  certain 
point,  and  efficiency.  If  a  member,  be  he 
ever  so  pure  a  saint,  believes  that  Joshua 
did  not  make  the  sun  stand  still,  or  that 
Isaiah  did  not  write  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  he 
must  retire  or  be  excommunicated.  Is  the 
Christian  Church,  then,  composed  only  of 
those  who  agree  to  think  exactly  alike? 
What,  then,  is  to  become  of  the  great  mass 
of  Christians  who  do  not  think  alike? 
Have  we  not  here  a  sect  of  Christian  peo¬ 
ple,  a  private  club  composed  of  a  group 
who  call  themselves  a  Christian  Church? 

There  are,  however,  churches  which 
have  done  away  with  these  elaborate 
creeds  and  catechisms,  as  archaic  and  in- 
exoressive  of  modern  faith,  and  have 
formed  new  and  simpler  creeds,  some  of 


[  53  ] 

them  very  beautiful  and  expressive.  I 
sympathize  deeply  with  such  efforts,  and 
yet  I  find  that,  as  the  years  go  on,  even 
these  creeds  are  subject  to  changes  to 
meet  later  thought  and  sometimes  to  radi¬ 
cal  revision.  Their  creation  is  founded  on 
the  presumption  that  a  creed  should  be 
closely  or  literally  interpreted,  as  was  the 
case  with  the  elaborate  creeds  which  were 
discarded;  and  so  long  as  the  theory  of  lit¬ 
eral  interpretation  holds,  the  creeds  must 
be  continually  changing  with  changing 
thought,  involving  perpetual  discussion 
on  the  terms  of  faith,  a  tendency  to  indi¬ 
vidualism,  and  the  loss  of  a  sense  of  corpo¬ 
rate  unity  which  is  an  essential  of  strength 
in  the  Christian  Church. 

3.  The  third  alternative  was  that  from 
which  our  fathers  in  the  Reformation  re¬ 
volted,  submission  to  the  Church  of  Rome. 
Born  and  bred  as  I  was  an  American,  in 
the  liberty  of  thought  which  is  our  heri- 


[  54  ] 


tage,  I  could  not  find  that  liberty  in  sub¬ 
mission  to  a  Church  which,  however  noble 
in  many  features,  is  founded  on  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  autocracy,  not  democracy,  and 
which  has  in  countries  where  it  has  been 
dominant  suppressed  liberty  of  thought; 
a  Church  which,  though  world-wide  in  its 
organization,  is  governed  by  foreign  influ¬ 
ences  and  a  foreign  ruler;  a  Church  which 
has  as  its  essentials  of  the  Faith  certain 
dogmas  which  I  believe  are  not  in  har¬ 
mony  with  the  teachings  of  the  Scripture. 

4.  The  fourth  alternative  I  took,  that 
of  remaining  in  the  Church  of  my  birth. 
In  making  this  decision,  I  was  led  to  a 
fresh  study  of  the  Church,  and  learned 
more  intimately  than  before  some  of  its 
salient  features. 

It  is  an  historic  Church,  with  liturgy, 
ministry,  and  creeds  reaching  back  to  the 
beginnings  of  Christianity;  and,  because 
historic,  has  not  only  those  elements  of 


1/ 


[  55  ] 

faith  which  have  weathered  the  storms  of 
centuries,  but  which  have  been  continu¬ 
ally  open  to  readjustments  and  fresh  in¬ 
terpretations. 

It  is  a  Church  wherein  the  Creeds  do 
not  stand  by  themselves  as  intellectual 
statements  of  the  Faith,  but  are  a  part  of 
the  whole  body  of  doctrine,  discipline,  and 
worship;  these  are  all  inextricably  bound 
up  together,  interpreting  each  other;  they 
have  no  mechanical  equality  of  emphasis, 
but  are  a  living  whole,  wherein  are  fea¬ 
tures  of  varied  importance  and  perspec¬ 
tive.  It  is  a  Church,  too,  wherein  the 
Creeds,  the  expressions  of  the  Faith,  are 
interwoven  with  the  spiritual  and  ethical 
elements  of  the  Faith. 

It  is  a  Church  which,  with  the  wealth  of 
ancient  tradition  and  glory,  has  within  it 
the  principles  for  which  our  fathers  fought 
in  the  Reformation,  and  which  have  been 
essential  in  the  upbuilding  of  modern  civ- 


[  56  ] 

ilization  and  the  rights  of  the  people  — 
the  sacredness  of  the  individual,  from 
which  springs  religious  liberty. 

I  am  well  aware  that  it  may  be  said, 
“Of  course,  a  religious  man  who  claims  to 
be  a  seeker  for  truth  usually  finds  a  way  to 
settle  in  the  old  ruts:  truth  is  to  him  what 
he  chooses  to  make  truth.”  It  may  be  so. 
I  am  sure  that  associations,  affection, 
and  traditions  have  influenced  me;  but 
who  is  there  that  is  not  influenced  by 
them?  It  is  enough  to  say  that  taking  all 
the  conditions  in  hand,  I  have  tried  to 
walk  the  path  of  truth,  and  in  so  doing 
have  tried  to  be  honest  with  myself,  and 
with  the  Church,  and  as  may  be  felt  when 
I  have  told  my  experiences,  this  has  not 
always  been  an  easy  task. 

In  my  younger  days  I  had,  as  I  have  al¬ 
ready  said,  a  conception  of  the  Church 
wherein  all  the  Articles  of  the  Faith  were 
of  equal  weight,  to  every  one  of  which 


[  57  ] 

every  member  subscribed,  and  if  he  could 
not  believe  in  every  one  in  its  original  in¬ 
tent,  he  must  give  up  his  membership  or 
be  excommunicated.  It  was  a  convenant 
of  honor  between  the  members;  call  it  a 
church,  a  sect,  a  religious  club,  or  what  you 
will.  I  gradually  perceived  that  this  was 
an  impossible  situation;  some  Articles 
of  the  Faith  were  more  important  than 
others;  some  were  essential,  others  not 
essential.  But  which  were  which? 

I  found  to  my  surprise  one  day  that  the 
verbal  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  was 
not  an  Article  of  Faith  in  the  Church;  nor 
the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch. 
But  Bishop  Colenso  had  been  condemned 
by  the  public  opinion  of  the  Church  of 
England  for  believing  these  things.  Did 
the  Church  condemn  men  for  questioning 
or  denying  the  non-essentials?  Was  it  or 
was  it  not  the  duty  of  a  member  or  minis¬ 
ter  of  the  Church  to  resign,  or  was  it  his 


[  58  ] 


duty  to  stay  in  the  Church  until  he  was  cast 
out?  Was  it  not  well  that  the  contrast 
of  questions  of  essentials  and  non-essen¬ 
tials  be  thrashed  out?  In  the  tremendous 
changes  of  thought  in  these  fifty  years  was 
it  not  incumbent  on  the  members  of  the 
Church  to  study  anew  her  Faith  and  the 
forms  of  expression  of  the  Faith? 

I  repeat  the  phrases,  “the  Faith,”  and 
“the  forms  of  expression  of  the  Faith,” 
because  they  should  be  clearly  distin¬ 
guished  from  each  other.  The  Faith  is 
that  which  I  or  members  of  the  Church,  or 
the  Church,  hold  to  as  the  spiritual  foun¬ 
dation  of  our  life.  It  is  something  so  deep, 
so  mystical  and  vital  that  men  cannot 
fully  express  it.  The  form  of  expression  of 
the  Faith,  the  formal  Creeds,  or  formula¬ 
ries,  or  ritual,  or  our  common  language, 
is  an  imperfect  medium.  It  can  never  be 
an  exact  or  full  expression,  and  must  be 
framed  in  changing  forms  to  meet  chang- 


[  59  ] 

ing  moods;  or,  if  the  form  remains,  and 
the  wording  of  the  Creed  stands  for  gener¬ 
ations,  it  must  be  interpreted  and  reinter¬ 
preted  as  the  generations  pass. 

Study  and  experience  in  the  ministry 
led  me  to  answers  to  some  of  these  ques¬ 
tions,  and  as  years  went  by,  it  became 
more  and  more  clear  that  the  process  of 
thought  through  which  I  had  passed  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  Scriptures  was  re¬ 
peating  itself  in  a  measure  in  the  interpre¬ 
tation  of  the  Prayer  Book,  the  doctrine, 
discipline,  and  worship  of  the  Church. 
The  Scriptures,  through  their  reinterpre¬ 
tation  in  the  light  of  modern  thought,  had 
taken  on  new  meaning  and  value:  they 
were  transfigured  by  spiritual  and  moral 
glory  far  beyond  anything  that  I  had 
dreamed  of.  In  the  falling  into  the  back¬ 
ground  of  much  that  our  fathers  thought 
essential,  there  had  come  to  the  front  the 
great  spiritual  purpose  of  the  whole,  the 


[  60  ] 

unconscious  preparation  of  the  world  for 
the  coming  of  the  Son  of  God. 

The  Prayer  Book  contains  a  body  of 
literature,  poetry,  prayer,  history,  and 
Creeds.  To  every  member  of  the  Church 
and  especially  to  every  minister,  comes 
the  responsibility  of  studying  these  in  the 
light  of  modern  thought  and  experience, 
and  so  far  as  is  necessary,  reinterpreting 
them. 

As  a  soldier  reads  again  his  commission 
to  freshen  his  memory  as  to  his  responsi¬ 
bilities  and  duties,  I  turned  again  to  the 
Office  of  Ordination  to  the  Priesthood. 
There  I  was  again  impressed  with  the  em¬ 
phasis  upon  “the  doctrine,  discipline,  and 
worship  of  the  Church,”  not  as  a  series  of 
articles,  but  as  one  whole,  for  to  that 
phrase  every  candidate  for  the  Priesthood 
subscribes.  I  noted,  too,  that  the  respon¬ 
sibility  is  laid  upon  the  Priest  to  “teach 
nothing  as  necessary  to  eternal  salvation, 


[  61  ] 

but  that  which  he  shall  be  persuaded  may 
be  concluded  and  proved  by  the  Scrip¬ 
ture.  ”  That  he  “minister  the  Doctrine, 
and  the  Discipline  of  Christ  as  the  Lord 
hath  commanded  and  as  this  Church  hath 
received  the  same,  according  to  the  Com¬ 
mandments  of  God”;  that  he  “will  be 
ready  with  all  faithful  diligence  to  banish 
and  drive  away  from  the  Church  all  er¬ 
roneous  and  strange  doctrines  contrary 
to  God’s  Word”;  that  he  “reverently 
obey  his  Bishop,  and  other  chief  Min¬ 
isters,  who  according  to  the  Canons  of  the 
Church  may  have  the  charge  and  govern¬ 
ment  over  him;  following  with  a  glad 
mind  and  will  their  godly  admonitions 
and  submitting  himself  to  their  godly 
judgments.” 

In  all  this,  however,  it  became  more  and 
more  clear  to  me  that  upon  the  Priest 
when  ordained,  upon  me  when  I  was  or¬ 
dained  was  laid  the  responsibility  of  decid- 


[  62  ] 

ing  what  is  “necessary  to  eternal  salva¬ 
tion”;  what  are  “erroneous  and  strange 
doctrines”;  what  is  “godly.”  And  if  ob¬ 
jection  to  my  decisions  should  be  made, 
the  final  judgment  would  be,  not  with 
my  Bishop,  not  with  popular  orthodoxy, 
not  with  public  clamor,  but  with  a  trial 
by  my  peers;  for  ours  is  a  constitutional 
and  not  an  autocratic  Church. 

These  statements  may  seem  to  some 
persons  details  of  small  moment.  They 
are,  however,  the  charter  of  liberty  of  the 
clergy;  and  it  is  well  that  the  clergy  should 
be  reminded  of  them;  for  during  my  epis¬ 
copate  I  have  learned  that  it  is  by  recog¬ 
nizing  the  rights  and  duties  of  each  other 
and  by  full  mutual  confidence  that  Bishop 
and  clergy  can  work  most  happily  and 
with  a  common  understanding  of  each 
other.  Such  mutual  confidence  will  close 
our  mouths  when  we  are  tempted  to  say  of 
any  of  our  brethren  with  whose  doctrine 


[  63  ] 

or  forms  of  worship  we  do  not  agree  that 
he  has  no  right  in  the  Church,  or  insinu¬ 
ate  that  by  remaining  in  the  Church  he 
is  evasive  or  intellectually  dishonest,  or 
wants  to  hold  his  living.  Far  better  err  on 
the  side  of  over-confidence  than  be  guilty 
of  a  lack  of  charity. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  personal 
question  as  to  how  I  could  with  contin¬ 
ually  changing  views  and  interpretation 
honestly  remain  in  the  Church,  repeat  the 
Creeds,  and  take  part  in  its  Sacraments. 
It  became  clearer  and  clearer  to  me  that 
the  Church  was  a  Church  and  not  a  sect; 
that  its  spirit  was  not  exclusive,  but  in¬ 
clusive;  that  there  were  many  opinions, 
doctrines,  interpretations,  and  teachings 
deemed  essential  to  the  Faith,  upon  the 
value  of  which  the  Church  has  never 
spoken.  William  R.  Huntington,  for  in¬ 
stance,  had  been  denied  ordination  for  a 
time  because  he  believed  not  in  the  eternal 


[  64  ] 

damnation  of  the  wicked,  but  in  their  an¬ 
nihilation;  he  stood  his  ground,  and  his 
Bishop  finally  yielded.  Other  young  men 
were  held  up  for  looseness  of  views  on  the 
inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  on  the  the¬ 
ories  of  the  Atonement,  and  definitions  of 
a  valid  call. 

It  gradually  dawned  upon  the  Bishops, 
clergy,  and  people  that  these  were  not  es¬ 
sential  doctrines.  The  essentials  of  the 
Faith  began  to  be  reduced  in  number. 
However,  the  Creeds  stood  as  the  bul¬ 
wark  of  doctrine  on  which  the  body  of  the 
Church  depended.  With  great  surprise 
I  discovered  that  the  Creeds  as  such  were 
not  mentioned  in  the  Ordinal,  simply  the 
doctrine,  discipline,  and  worship  con¬ 
tained  in  the  Prayer  Book,  in  Prayers, 
Litany,  Creeds,  Sacraments,  and  Ordinal. 

From  one  point  of  view  these  involve 
an  appalling  amount  of  “doctrine”;  from 
another,  the  amount  of  literature,  its  va- 


[  65  ] 

riety  of  prose,  poetry,  dogma,  and  ethics, 
offer  and  encourage  large  liberty  of  inter¬ 
pretation.  Men  cannot  think  alike  on  all 
these  things;  hence  there  must  be  recog¬ 
nized  and  gladly  recognized  wide  diver¬ 
gences  of  views.  The  Church  was  enlarg¬ 
ing,  as  I  saw  it,  from  a  sect  to  a  Church. 
The  ignorance  was  mine;  she  has  always 
been  a  Church;  and  millions  of  people  like 
myself  have  mistaken  her,  for  she  has  an 
historic  background.  Modern  laws  and 
statutes  must  be  strictly  interpreted;  in¬ 
terpretations  of  ancient  charters  and  dec¬ 
larations  of  fundamental  principles  entail 
large  liberty  of  thought  and  interpreta¬ 
tion.  The  Magna  Charta  of  Runnymede 
and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
allow  larger  liberty  of  interpretation  than 
the  last  law  passed  by  Parliament  or  Con¬ 
gress. 

I  have  said  that  there  is  no  mention  of 

Creed.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  there  is 

* 


[  66  ] 


no  mention  of  the  evidence  of  vital  faith, 
but  of  the  formal  expression  of  faith  in 
the  language  of  a  creed;  and  yet  the  two 
Creeds  stand  in  the  very  heart  of  our  daily 
service  and  sacraments,  and  are  assumed 
by  most  of  us  to  be  the  tests  of  faith. 
Without  these  Creeds  many  people  feel 
that  the  foundations  of  the  Church  would 
be  endangered. 

Are  we  so  sure  of  this?  Do  we  not  make 
a  mistake  in  thinking  that  the  Creeds  are 
our  chief  instruments  in  binding  us  to¬ 
gether  in  unity?  Surely  thinking  alike  has 
no  such  unifying  power  as  common  prayer, 
common  associations  of  worship,  and  a 
common  loyalty  to  the  great  traditions  of 
a  common  faith,  and  a  supreme  loyalty 
to  the  Personal  Christ.  The  great  mass  of 
people  in  the  recital  of  the  Creed  do  not 
understand  the  articles  in  detail.  What 
meaning  does  the  average  worshipper  at¬ 
tach  to  the  article,  “  of  one  substance 


[  67  ] 

with  the  Father,”  or  “He  descended  into 
Hell”?  Far  deeper  and  more  spiritual 
bonds  than  the  Creeds  hold  the  Church 
together  and  inspire  the  people  to  go  for¬ 
ward.  It  was  generations  after  the  Apos¬ 
tolic  days  that  the  Creeds,  those  great 
monuments  built  up  gradually  to  express 
the  Faith,  took  their  place  in  public  wor¬ 
ship,  The  Creeds  were  the  living  and  ex¬ 
act  expression  of  the  doctrine  of  those 
days;  and  the  echo  comes  down  to  us 
through  the  ages  of  doctors,  soldiers, 
saints,  martyrs,  and  the  whole  people 
repeating  and  believing  every  sentence 
that  they  spoke,  and  with  the  original 
intent  of  their  framers. 

At  the  close  of  the  American  Revolu¬ 
tion,  when  this  Church  separated  from  the 
Church  of  England,  our  fathers  stated  in 
our  Book  of  Common  Prayer  that  “this 
Church  is  very  far  from  intending  to 
depart  from  the  Church  of  England  in 


[  68  ] 

any  essential  point  of  doctrine,  discipline, 
or  worship”;  and  yet,  in  adopting  her 
Prayer  Book,  this  Church  dropped  one  of 
the  three  Creeds  of  the  Mother  Church, 
the  Athanasian  Creed.  The  Athanasian 
Creed  still  stands  in  the  Prayer  Book  of 
the  Church  of  England,  and  clergy  and 
people  are  required  by  law  to  recite  it 
on  the  great  Feast  Days.  But  one  would 
have  difficulty  in  deciding  as  to  whether 
the  Mother  Church,  with  three  historic 
Creeds,  or  this  Church,  with  only  two,  is 
the  more  loyal  to  the  Faith.  Giving  up  a 
creed  does  not  necessarily  involve  a  loss 
of  the  faith  for  which  the  creed  stands.  It 
may  even  involve  such  a  deepening  of  the 
faith  that  the  form  of  expression  seems  too 
inadequate  to  satisfy  the  faithful. 

I  have  said  that  the  antiquity  of  the 
Creeds,  the  Apostles’  and  the  Nicene, 
their  forms  of  expression  adapted  to  their 
day,  their  emphasis  of  fundamentals, 


[  69  ] 


invite  varied  and  very  free  interpretation. 
The  articles  of  these  Creeds,  too,  are  not 
of  equal  importance.  To  this  I  think 
all  churchmen  agree.  To  illustrate,  the 
phrase,  “He  ascended  into  heaven,  and 
sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  God,”  was 
interpreted  literally  many  centuries  ago. 
To  the  people  of  fifty  years  ago,  to  myself 
as  a  boy,  heaven  was  local,  up  there,  and 
Jesus  was  taken  up  there  bodily;  it  was  to 
me  what  the  man  in  the  street  would  call 
“a  real  thing.” 

“I  believe  in  the  Resurrection  of  the 
body”  used  to  mean,  of  course,  the  resur¬ 
rection  of  the  flesh,  the  same  material 
bodv  that  was  buried  in  the  earth.  As 
late  as  1884,  when  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
I  myself  heard  Bishop  Wordsworth  of 
Lincoln,  one  of  the  most  learned  Biblical 
scholars  of  his  day,  object  to  the  crema¬ 
tion  of  the  dead  on  the  ground  that  it 
would  weaken  faith  in  the  resurrection 


[  70  ] 

of  the  body.  These  words  now  have  a 
deeper  meaning,  more  spiritual  than  be¬ 
fore,  that  He  who  humbled  Himself  and 
became  obedient  to  death  upon  the  Cross, 
who  gave  to  us  in  His  life  the  revelation 
of  the  Father,  overcame  the  power  of  all 
spiritual  enemies,  overcame  death,  and 
entered  again  the  life  of  the  spirit  victori¬ 
ous,  his  personality  holding  its  integrity 
through  to  the  end  and  in  eternity. 

Upon  my  return  from  England  that 
summer,  I  found  a  group  of  people,  some 
of  them  physicians,  who  had  been  given 
the  impression  by  some  prominent  reli¬ 
gious  leaders  that,  because  of  its  supposed 
overthrow  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Resur¬ 
rection,  cremation  was  a  pagan  form  and 
forbidden  by  the  Church.  Fearing  that 
this  misunderstanding,  based  on  such  an 
unspiritual  interpretation,  would  create 
an  additional  cleavage  between  science 
and  religion,  and  determining  to  throw 


[  71  ] 


my  influence  against  such  a  cleavage,  and 
in  behalf  of  a  more  spiritual  conception,  I 
immediately  joined  a  cremation  organi¬ 
zation,  of  which  I  have  been  ever  since 
a  Vice-President.  I  have  no  particular 
interest  in  the  cremation  or  the  burial  of 
my  body;  but  know  that  my  action  had  a 
helpful  influence  in  creating  a  right  under¬ 
standing. 

I  was  brought  up  to  believe  that  “Jesus 
Christ,  His  only  Son  our  Lord,  was  con¬ 
ceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  born  of  the 
Virgin  Mary”;  and  in  my  earlier  ministry 
assumed,  as  has  been  assumed  throughout 
a  large  part  of  the  Christian  era  and  in 
Christian  theology,  that  this  fact  was  an 
essential  element  in  the  Incarnation. 

It  is  now  well  recognized  that  scholars 
are  divided  upon  the  question  of  the 
Virgin  Birth,  as  to  whether  the  stronger 
evidence  leads  to  the  confirmation  of  this 
as  a  fact,  or  whether  it  is  a  tradition 


[  72  ] 

which  must  be  reexamined.  These  schol¬ 
ars  are  not  mere  critics  and  sceptics,  but 
are  upon  either  side  men  of  equal  rever¬ 
ence,  faith,  and  belief  in  the  Incarnation. 

With  the  conservatism  of  my  nature,  I 
have  always  acceded  to  the  tradition,  but 
with  a  mind  open  to  further  light.  Some 
thirty  years  ago,  however,  I  was  con¬ 
vinced  that  there  is  no  essential  connec¬ 
tion  between  the  belief  in  the  Virgin 
Birth  and  a  belief  in  the  Incarnation. 
In  giving  expression  to  that  conviction, 
which  was  founded  on  the  careful  study 
of  a  few  American  scholars,  I  was  charged 
by  friends  dear  to  me  with  heresy.  It 
is  now  a  source  of  satisfaction  to  read 
in  Bishop  Gore’s  later  works  wherein 
he  is  defending  the  doctrine  of  the  Virgin 
Birth,  that  he  has  come  to  the  same 
conclusion. 

There  are,  as  we  well  know,  clergymen,  a 
number  of  them,  who  find  it  difficult  if  not 


t  73  ] 

impossible  to  accept  the  doctrine  of  the 
Virgin  Birth,  whose  belief  in  the  Incarna¬ 
tion  is  sincere  and  firm;  indeed,  whose 
belief  has  been  made  the  firmer  by  their 
release  from  this  doctrine.  Their  reasons 
are  to  them  convincing;  and  inasmuch  as 
the  two  Creeds  stand  for  the  essentials  of 
the  Faith,  and  as  belief  in  the  Virgin 
Birth  is  not  to  them  an  essential,  I  am 
clear  that  with  an  honest  heart  they  may 
join  in  the  recital  of  the  Creeds. 

I  well  know  that  this  position  may 
bring  sorrow  to  those  whose  faith  in  the 
Incarnation,  whose  habits  of  thought  and 
worship  have  been  interwoven  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  Virgin  Birth.  But  their 
interpretation  of  the  Creeds  and  their 
comfort  in  them  are  in  no  way  affected  by 
the  different  interpretations  of  others. 

Since  my  first  canonical  examinations, 
as  Bishop  I  have  never  asked  my  candi¬ 
dates  their  position  on  that  point;  for 


[  74  ] 


knowing  the  division  of  judgment  among 
scholars  and  saintly  men  on  the  subject, 
I  have  not  wanted  to  commit  them  to  a 
decision  before  they  have  enough  matu¬ 
rity  of  thought  to  make  one.  I  believe 
that  the  results  of  this  conduct  have  jus¬ 
tified  themselves.  Those  candidates  have 
as  a  whole  been  loyal  to  the  Faith  of  the 
Church,  and  especially  to  the  truth  of  the 
Incarnation  of  our  Lord. 

Indeed,  experience  has  convinced  me 
that  the  vital  test  of  a  young  man  as  he 
enters  a  high  calling  is  not  as  to  what 
particular  doctrine  he  believes  to-day,  but 
what  is  the  essential  trend  of  his  thought, 
what  his  attitude  toward  the  ever- 
revealing  truth;  not  in  what  he  does,  or 
thinks,  but  what,  in  the  long  run,  he  is, 
what  spirit,  character,  or  temper  controls 
him.  Hence,  in  examining  young  men  for 
Holy  Orders  I  delegate  to  the  Examining 
Chaplains  the  testing  as  to  their  knowl- 


[  75  ] 

edge  and  intellectual  abilities,  but  I  want 
to  be  sure  as  to  what  they  are,  their  at¬ 
titude  of  mind,  their  capacity  of  vital 
faith,  their  humility  and  their  courage  in 
facing  in  Christ’s  name  the  world  and  its 
revelations  of  error  and  truth. 

I  remember  that  as  a  young  candidate 
my  theological  convictions  were  largely 
those  of  my  last  teachers.  From  these 
convictions  I  moved  the  very  next  day 
toward,  I  hope,  a  fuller  knowledge  of  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Christ.  Every  day  since 
then  the  emphasis  and  proportion  of  my 
beliefs  have  changed.  By  inheritance  and 
temper  I  am  a  conservative.  Taken  off 
my  guard,  I  should  like  to  have  things 
stay  as  they  are.  It  is  so  comfortable  to 
have  habits  of  thought  and  life,  principles 
and  beliefs,  that  never  alter.  I  should  so 
enjoy  life  if  I  were  always  orthodox. 
What  a  relief  it  would  be  never  to  worry, 
think,  or  struggle!  And  then  a  shaft  of 


[  76  ] 

fresh  truth,  gleaming  with  heaven’s  bril¬ 
liance,  strikes  across  my  path,  and  I  leap 
toward  it  tingling  with  the  spirit  of 
adventure. 

Some  one  wrote  a  while  ago  that  the 
American  youth  are  looking  deep  for  the 
foundations  of  faith,  they  are  funda¬ 
mentalists.  True  in  a  sense;  a  strong 
structure  must  have  strong  foundations. 
But  I  like  another  figure  better.  I  believe 
that  the  American  youth,  inheriting  re¬ 
ligious  faith,  mental  powers,  and  alert 
bodies,  are  best  won  when  faith  is  made 
an  adventure,  and  when  that  adventure 
leads  on  through  questions,  struggles, 
sacrifice  toward  the  truth.  Surely  that 
was  the  spirit  of  the  young  man  of  Naz¬ 
areth,  Judea,  and  Jerusalem.  On  and  on 
He  went,  ever  gathering,  ever  revealing 
Truth.  “Ye  shall  know  the  Truth,  and 
the  Truth  shall  make  you  free.”  “The 
Spirit  of  Truth  will  guide  you  into 


[  77  ] 

all  truth.”  Mark  the  challenge  which 
brought  Him  to  the  Cross.  “Ye  seek  to 
kill  me  as  a  man  that  hath  told  you  the 
Truth.”  In  Christ’s  service  complete 
confidence  in  the  truth  has  been  my  great 
source  of  exhilaration  in  these  fifty  years. 

Moreover,  I  have  found  it  impossible 
to  stand  still  in  thought  and  beliefs  for 
two  consecutive  weeks.  The  movement 
of  thought  and  action,  religious,  social, 
political,  scientific,  philosophic,  has  been 
such  in  fifty  years  that  one  cannot  live  and 
not  move.  One  cannot  hold  fast  to  the 
dock  by  the  cable  at  the  stern  as  the  ship 
sails  out.  With  sails  full  and  helm  true, 
but  with  the  charted  stars  and  continents, 
with  unerring  compass,  she  leaps  into  the 
open  sea. 

I  have  been  speaking  of  the  doctrine 
and  Creeds  of  the  Church  as  they  relate  to 
the  clergy.  We  must  remember  that  the 


[  78  ] 

laity  have  a  right  to  the  same  consider¬ 
ation  as  the  clergy.  Thousands  are  in 
doubt  on  some  points  in  the  Creeds,  but 
they  love  the  Church,  they  want  to  recite 
the  Creeds;  they  stumble,  however,  at 
some  one  article,  and  feel  that  they  cannot 
with  intellectual  honesty  take  their  part 
in  the  recital  of  the  whole.  When  worship¬ 
ping  in  a  congregation,  my  attention  has 
been  compelled  to  the  number  of  men 
of  Christian  character  and  faith,  many  of 
them  communicants,  who  will  join  in 
prayers  and  hymns  full  of  doctrinal  sig¬ 
nificance,  but  whose  mouths  are  shut  when 
they  come  to  the  Creeds.  Spiritually  they 
are  one  with  the  Faith  which  these 
Creeds  attempt  to  express;  intellectually 
they  assume  that  they  must  support 
every  article,  and  with  an  interpretation 
taught  them  perhaps  in  their  boyhood 
which  they  cannot  with  honesty  support 
to-day. 


[  79  ] 

Let  us  recall  again  that  most  of  the 
worshippers  in  our  churches  are  unable  to 
make  doctrinal  distinctions,  and  cannot 
therefore  intelligently  interpret  the  arti¬ 
cles  of  the  Creeds,  and  yet  they  yearn  to 
take  part  in  reciting  them. 

When  we  meet  their  doubts  and  ques¬ 
tions,  may  we  not  turn  them  to  that 
illuminating  answer  to  the  question  in 
the  Catechism,  “What  dost  thou  chiefly 
learn  in  these  articles  of  thy  belief?” 
“I  learn  to  believe  in  God  the  Father, 
who  hath  made  me,  and  all  the  world;  in 
God  the  Son,  who  hath  redeemed  me,  and 
all  mankind;  and  in  God  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  sanctifieth  me,  and  all  the  people  of 
God.” 

As  a  people,  we  of  the  West  are  very 
matter  of  fact,  and  in  statements  of 
religious  faith  assume  that  everything 
must  be  definite,  logical  and  complete.  In 
the  singing  of  hymns,  however,  we  give 


[  80  ] 

ourselves  more  freedom,  and  in  religious 
poetry  we  do  have  some,  though  not  very 
much,  imagination.  Hence  our  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  Creeds  is  as  of  exact,  formal 
statements  to  be  interpreted  as  we  inter¬ 
pret  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  If  that  conception  stands,  I  am 
sure  that  unless  the  Church  is  ready  to 
resolve  itself  into  a  sect  wherein  all 
members  think  alike,  there  is  no  alterna¬ 
tive  but  to  permit  those  who  cannot 
accept  this  or  that  article  to  be  silent  at 
that  point. 

But  surely  when  we  want  to  express  in 
warmest  terms  our  loyalty  to  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  this  Nation,  we  do  not  read  aloud 
the  Constitution;  we  break  forth  in  the 
National  Anthem,  or  some  other  song  or 
poem,  and  we  are  often  thoughtless  as  to 
whether  we  know  the  exact  words  or  their 
meaning.  I  am  more  and  more  deeply 
impressed  with  the  conviction  that,  if 


[  81  ] 


we  are  to  hope  that  the  whole  body  of 
Christian  people  joining  in  the  worship  of 
God  in  our  churches  are  to  gain  the  inspi¬ 
ration  and  power  which  comes  with  the 
common  recital  of  a  common  loyalty,  they 
must  be  taught  that  this  is  the  meaning  of 
the  recital  or  singing  of  the  Creeds  in 
worship.  We  proclaim  in  words  endeared 
by  association,  hallowed  by  the  ages,  our 
loyalty  to  God  the  Father,  his  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Spirit.  We  cannot  define  the 
Triune  God.  We  understand  but  little; 
but  we  do  each  and  all  stand  for  and 
depend  upon  our  Heavenly  Father,  the 
loving  Saviour,  and  the  Eternal  Spirit  of 
Truth.  Believing  this,  we  may  all  join  in 
the  ancient  Creeds  of  the  Church. 

In  these  last  few  pages  I  may  seem  to 
have  run  off  into  a  theological  treatise,  or 
an  attempt  to  reinterpret  the  Faith  for 
others.  That  would  be  beyond  my  abil¬ 
ities.  I  have  been  trying  to  tell  the  simple 


[  82  ] 

story  of  my  own  personal  experience  in 
the  Church  during  the  past  fifty  years. 

The  convictions  and  interpretations  to 
which  I  have  come  are  not  ideal,  nor  are 
they  necessarily  a  final  solution  of  all  the 
difficulties  involved.  In  naming  the  four 
alternatives,  I  tried  to  suggest  that  I  have 
not  been  able  to  discover  any  ideal  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  faith  which  will  meet  all  condi¬ 
tions.  A  dead  faith  may  have  a  static, 
formal  creed.  But  so  long  as  men  think 
and  faith  grows  from  day  to  day,  the 
expression  of  faith  must  be  living  also,  and 
its  interpretation  change  with  the  growth 
of  the  living  faith.  The  language  in 
which  one  expresses  his  faith  to-day  may 
be  archaic  to-morrow.  And  yet,  unless 
we  dissolve  into  pure  individualism,  we 
must  have  some  common  forms  of  reli¬ 
gious  expression.  The  new  wine  will  burst 
the  old  wineskins  unless  the  skins  are 
elastic  enough  to  meet  the  pressure.  I 


[  83  ] 

believe  that  the  best  practical  result,  so 
far  as  we  can  now  see,  is  in  the  use  of  the 
ancient  Creeds  and  forms.  But  creeds  and 
other  expressions  of  a  common  faith  are  a 
growth  rather  than  an  immediate  creation, 
and  we  are  sure  that  the  Holy  Spirit  will 
guide  the  Church  to  what  is  wise  and  true. 

Personally  I  cannot  but  feel  that  the 
Church  is  to-day  placing  undue  confidence 
in  her  emphasis  upon  formal  Creeds  and 
their  recital.  It  seems  to  be  assumed  by 
some  good  people  that  unless  the  Creed  is 
recited,  the  service  has  no  backbone  of 
belief;  and  if  any  one  criticizes  the  form 
or  phraseology  of  one  of  the  ancient 
Creeds,  it  is  assumed  that  he  is  weak  in 
the  Faith.  The  fact  is  that  his  criticism 
may  spring  from  a  living  faith  which  is 
restive  under  necessarily  imperfect  ex¬ 
pression;  it  is  not  the  Faith  that  is  inade¬ 
quate,  but  the  form  of  expression  of  the 
Faith. 


[  84  ] 

May  I  mention  an  example  of  what 
seems  to  be  an  unsuitable  use  of  the 
Apostles’  Creed?  In  the  reception  of  the 
child  or  adult  into  the  Church  at  baptism, 
this  Creed  is  the  doctrinal  test,  “Dost 
thou  believe  all  the  articles  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Faith  as  contained  in  the  Apostles’ 
Creed?’’  If  this  is  to  be  interpreted  in  the 
free  way  which  I  have  already  suggested 
that  the  Creeds  should  be  interpreted,  as 
the  free  expression  of  faith  in  Christ,  very 
good. 

But  if  this  promise  involves  the  accept¬ 
ance  of  all  the  articles  of  the  Creed  in 
their  literal  sense,  I  ask,  as  I  asked  in  the 
House  of  Bishops  at  the  General  Conven¬ 
tion  a  year  ago,  “What  right  has  any 
branch  of  the  Catholic  Church  to  set  up  a 
bar  of  entrance  to  the  Church  which  is 
higher  than  that  used  by  the  Apostles 
themselves?”  And  it  was  with  great 
gratification  that  I  heard  the  beloved  and 


[  85  ] 

conservative  Bishop  of  Southern  Ohio  rise 
and  formally  offer  as  an  amendment  to 
the  present  Baptismal  Office  the  expres¬ 
sion,  “I  believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God.”  The  amendment  was 
voted  down,  but  the  Bishop  turned  to  me, 
saying,  “We  have  started  a  movement 
which  will  continue  after  we  have  gone.” 

I  just  mentioned  the  fact  that  many 
worshippers  who  take  full  part  in  the 
service  hesitate  as  they  come  to  the  Creed. 
Has  it  occurred  to  us  that  it  is  a  character¬ 
istic  of  some  of  the  finest  saints  that  the 
very  fulness  and  sincerity  of  their  faith 
make  them  sensitive  to  the  repetition  of 
phrases  with  a  different  intent  from  that 
of  their  first  composers?  They  therefore 
remain  silent  through  the  whole  Creed, 
although  they  join  heartily  in  words  of 
prayer  and  praise  in  which  are  embodied 
the  same  doctrines. 

May  not  the  day  come  when  these 


saints  will  receive  such  consideration  from 
the  Church  as  will  enable  them  to  express 
their  faith  in  a  way  which  does  not  compel 
them  to  put  it  into  formal  creeds?  Mean¬ 
while  we  will  try  to  show  them  the  intel¬ 
lectual  consistency  in  reciting  the  Creed 
as  a  whole,  as  a  free  expression  of  our  loy¬ 
alty  to  God  the  Father,  His  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Spirit.  History  and  the  lives  of  the 
Saints  have  demonstrated  the  power  of 
the  simultaneous  voices  of  the  faithful 
ringing  out  the  Creeds,  bringing  vigor, 
courage,  comfort,  and  hope  to  all. 


Ill 


In  this  sketch  of  changes  in  my  religious 
thought  and  my  faith,  I  have  dwelt  upon 
the  two  salient  features  of  the  past:  the 
reinterpretation  of  the  Scripture  under  the 
Spirit  of  Truth,  with  its  increase  of  spir¬ 
itual  significance  and  power;  and  the  re¬ 
interpretation  of  the  Prayer  Book,  the 
Doctrine,  Discipline,  and  Worship  of  the 
Church,  with  its  freer  interpretation  of 
the  ancient  forms  and  creeds  and  with  its 
concentration  upon  the  fundamental  truth 
of  God  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit, 
revealed  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ. 

There  has  been  developing  in  my 
thought  and  experience  a  third  feature 
which  I  have  already  hinted  at,  but  which, 
I  believe,  runs  deeper  than  the  thoughts 
we  have  touched. 

This  discussion  of  reinterpretation  of 
Scriptures  and  Creeds,  this  debate  upon 


[  88  ] 

the  Bible  and  the  Faith,  whether  in  the 
form  of  fundamentalism  or  modernism, 
conservatism  or  liberalism,  is  interesting 
to  us  Americans;  we  enjoy  crossing  intel¬ 
lectual  swords,  we  like  to  rest  our  faith 
upon  logical  foundations;  and  up  to  a 
point  it  is  well.  Straight  and  hard  think¬ 
ing,  the  expression  of  faith  in  dogmatic 
form,  differences,  sharp  differences,  in  be¬ 
lief,  are  natural  and  necessary,  and  keep 
the  Church  and  her  Faith  steady  in  the 
changing  tides  of  thought.  But  —  and 
this  is  my  point  —  I  am  coming  more  and 
more  positively  to  the  conclusion  that 
these  are  not  religion,  and  that  these 
discussions  often  lead  to  the  evasion  of 
religion.  Religion  is  in  the  personal  com¬ 
munion  of  God  and  man.  The  Christian 
religion  is  that  communion  expressed 
through  loyalty  and  devotion  to  Jesus 
Christ. 

In  studying  the  Creeds,  I  have  been  im- 


[  89  ] 

pressed  with  the  thought  that  they  are 
not  sufficient  in  and  of  themselves,  nor  al¬ 
ways  necessary  in  expressing  the  Faith  of 
the  people  in  worship.  For  instance,  “I 
believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty, 
Maker  of  heaven  and  earth,  And  in  Jesus 
Christ  His  only  Son”;  what  is  there  in 
these  phrases,  except  as  they  are  a  reflec¬ 
tion  of  our  spiritual  experience?  We  name 
God  the  Father,  the  Creator,  but,  what  is 
there  in  the  phrase  to  show  that  He  is  a 
loving  and  not  a  malevolent  God,  as  some 
people  think?  “And  Jesus  Christ  His  only 
Son”;  what  is  there  in  the  Apostles’  Creed 
that  suggests  Him,  His  personality,  and 
the  motive  for  His  humiliation  and  sac¬ 
rifice?  And  yet  we  who  know  the  Father 
and  the  Son  read  into  these  words  our 
interpretation  and  definitions,  a  benefi¬ 
cent  Father  and  a  loving  Son.  “God  so 
loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only 
begotten  Son.” 


[  90  ] 

I  cannot  but  think  that  the  Church  and 
those  who  framed  the  Liturgy  felt  this, 
and  in  their  spiritual,  practical  way  an¬ 
ticipated  it.  For  illustration,  may  I  turn 
to  the  Liturgy,  the  preparation  for  the 
Church’s  Great  Feast;  that  part  which 
we  commonly  call  the  Ante-Communion? 
The  Creed  stands  as  in  some  respects  the 
climax  to  the  preparation;  and  I  suppose 
that  a  large  proportion  of  the  faithful 
think  of  it  as  the  backbone  of  the  whole. 
And  yet,  as  I  have  just  said,  there  is  apart 
from  what  we  read  into  it  very  little  that 
is  really  spiritual  or  that  bears  on  char¬ 
acter. 

If  we  look  back,  however,  to  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  the  Ante-Communion,  we  discover 
a  logical  progress.  At  the  head  stands  that 
most  spiritual  and  uplifting  of  all  forms  of 
expression  of  faith,  the  Lord’s  Prayer. 
Caught  up  into  a  higher  atmosphere  we 
then,  as  have  all  the  Saints  in  preparing 


t  91  ] 

to  meet  God,  ask  for  the  cleansing  of  our 
hearts  that  “we  may  perfectly  love  Thee 
and  magnify  Thy  Holy  Name.”  With 
hearts  purified,  we  listen  to  the  Com¬ 
mandments  and  pray  that  God  will  in¬ 
cline  our  hearts  to  obey  His  laws. 

I  have  sometimes  wondered,  by  the  way, 
if  those  who  insist  upon  the  literal  inter¬ 
pretation  of  every  article  of  the  Creed 
have  considered  the  responsive  prayer  to 
each  of  the  Ten  Commandments.  We 
pray,  for  instance,  that  our  hearts  maybe 
inclined  to  keep  the  Sabbath  Day  holy, 
when  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  are  not  go¬ 
ing  to  keep  the  Sabbath  Day  at  all.  We 
freely  interpret  the  Ten  Commandments 
under  the  spirit  of  the  two  great  Com¬ 
mandments  of  our  Lord;  and  we  read  into 
our  prayer  the  hallowing  of  the  Christian 
Sunday,  not  the  seventh  but  the  first  day 
of  the  week. 

The  emphasis  on  the  moral  law,  the  two 


[  92  ] 

great  Commandments,  is  of  the  genius  of 
our  Church;  in  the  highest  stretches  of  the 
spirit  we  recall  to  ourselves  our  duty  to 
God  and  neighbor.  Through  the  practical 
religious  and  moral  life  comes  fuller  vision 
of  God.  “If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he 
shall  know  of  the  doctrine.”  It  is  at  this 
point  the  lack  of  that  emphasis  as  com¬ 
pared  with  that  of  dogmatic  statement 
and  ecclesiastical  requirements  that  turns 
many  a  high-minded  man  and  woman 
from  the  Church. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  the  typical  x^meri- 
can,  is  reported  to  have  said,  “When  any 
church  will  inscribe  over  its  altar  as  its  sole 
qualification  of  membership  the  Saviour’s 
condensed  statement  of  both  law  and  gos¬ 
pel,  ‘Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  Thy  God 
with  all  thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  soul 
and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighbor 
as  thyself,’  that  church  will  I  join  with 
all  my  heart  and  with  all  my  soul.” 


[  93  ] 

Having  heard  these  commands  and  in 
the  Collect,  Epistle,  and  Gospel  caught 
the  dominant  spiritual  thought  for  the 
day,  we  are  then  prepared  to  read  into  the 
Creed  the  spiritual  and  moral  meaning 
and  power  of  our  faith,  and  join  in  it  as 
our  Battle  Hymn,  our  Song  of  Praise,  our 
Confession  of  Faith. 

What  I  want  to  bring  out  is  that  the 
spiritual  and  moral  emphasis  has  a  place, 
to  my  mind  a  higher  place,  than  that 
of  the  doctrine  in  the  standards  of  the 
Church.  They  all  belong  together,  how¬ 
ever,  as  a  living  whole.  When,  therefore, 
we  recite  the  Creed,  our  first  care  is  not  as 
to  whether  we  believe  each  article  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  early  interpretation,  whether  we 
are  orthodox  in  our  beliefs,  but  whether 
we  express  in  our  lives  the  beliefs  that  we 
speak.  I  find  it  a  mighty  good  thing  to  be 
honest  with  myself  and  ask  myself  if, 
while  I  am  intellectually  sensitive  in  the 


[  94  ] 

saying  of  the  Creed,  I  am  morally  and 
spiritually  as  sensitive  in  saying  it.  It  is 
at  this  point  that  the  Episcopal  Church 
has,  I  believe,  a  special  contribution  to 
make  to  the  religious  life  of  to-day.  Its 
genius  is  practical  and  ethical  as  well  as 
doctrinal  and  spiritual;  these  elements  are 
inextricably  bound  up  in  our  doctrine, 
discipline,  and  worship.  The  test  of  our 
sincerity  is  in  the  showing  forth  this  faith, 
not  only  with  our  lips,  but  in  our  lives. 

A  short  time  ago  a  friend  said  to  me, 
with  something  of  a  sigh,  “Is  this  move¬ 
ment  of  thought,  this  fight  for  the  Faith, 
this  meeting  of  problems,  going  to  keep 
on?  Has  not  the  last  half-century  fought 
most  of  the  questions  through  to  a  finish?  ” 

I  do  not  so  read  the  history  of  the 
Church,  the  life  of  Christ  or  of  His  Apos¬ 
tles.  What  do  we  mean  when  we  sing  the 
hymn,  “Onward,  Christian  Soldiers’’;  or, 


[  95  ] 


“The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  War”? 
Shall  we  throw  them  out  of  the  Hymnal 
and  retain,  “  O  that  I  had  wings  like  a  dove, 
for  then  would  I  fly  away  and  be  at  rest”? 

The  future  as  I  see  it  is  going  to  bring  to 
the  Church  fresh  problems  and  battles,  in¬ 
tellectual  and  spiritual,  and,  if  we  hold 
steadfast  to  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  victories 
also,  which  will  be  equal  to  any  in  the 
past.  Earnest,  truth-loving  scholars  who 
are  now  studying  and  analyzing  the  New 
Testament,  the  life  of  Christ,  and  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  are  liable  to 
bring  forth  results  which  may  again  test 
the  faith  of  ourselves  and  our  children. 

What  I,  a  man  of  over  threescore  years 
and  ten,  do  plead  for  from  my  contem¬ 
poraries  and  the  men  and  women  of  mid¬ 
dle  age  is  that  they  trust  the  younger  gen¬ 
eration  to  meet  these  problems  in  their 
own  way.  We  are  trusting  young  men 
with  large  responsibilities  and  action  in 


[  96  ] 

the  van  of  science,  business,  art,  medicine, 
and  all  the  callings.  Shall  we  distrust 
them  in  meeting  the  fresh  revelations  of 
thought  and  reinterpreting  them  for  the 
Christian  Faith? 

The  fact  is  that  many  young  men  of 
force  and  promise  who  see  opportunities 
for  forward  movement  in  other  callings, 
have  the  impression,  gotten  from  men  and 
writers  who  are  called  religious  leaders, 
that  the  Church  is  static,  that  its  belief 
must  stand  just  as  it  has  for  generations. 
“The  Faith  once  delivered  to  the  Saints” 
is  not  a  tightly  packed  parcel,  but  a  living, 
vigorous  Body  with  soul  and  spiritual 
powers.  I  ask  every  older  reader  of  this 
little  book  to  kindle  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
youth  and  gain  their  confidence  by  trust¬ 
ing  their  loyalty  to  the  truth,  believing 
that  through  that  loyalty  they  will  lead 
our  children  closer  and  closer  to  Him  who 
is  the  Truth. 


[  97  ] 


And  as  for  the  young  men  and  women, 
if  you  will  keep  your  heart  sound,  your  life 
pure,  your  thinking  straight,  and  your 
spirit  humble,  I  know  that  in  Christ  you 
will  find  your  leader,  and  the  Spirit  will 
beckon  you  on  to  ever  fuller  Truth. 


THE  END 


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DATE  DUE 


